[Terinalo]

Hello everyone. I'm in the middle of developing a new web page for my future dojo in MN, and have a quick question about capitalization and word spacing.

When using japanese words in english sentences, do we capitalize them? (kata, iaito, katana, etc) Do we use italics?
Only the first instance?

When using terms specific to budo (ie kendo, iaido, musoshindenryu) do we capitalize it? Italicize it?

How do we space words that are combined? (ie musoshindenryu or muso shin den ryu or musoshinden ryu)
It's all very confusing.
Any help would be appreciated.

[ibiDb4uu]

Hello everyone. I'm in the middle of developing a new web page for my future dojo in MN, and have a quick question about capitalization and word spacing.

When using japanese words in english sentences, do we capitalize them? (kata, iaito, katana, etc) Do we use italics?
Only the first instance?

When using terms specific to budo (ie kendo, iaido, musoshindenryu) do we capitalize it? Italicize it?

How do we space words that are combined? (ie musoshindenryu or muso shin den ryu or musoshinden ryu)
It's all very confusing.
Any help would be appreciated.

In my Japanese history classes we were always taught to italicize Japanese words unless they were proper nouns, in which case we'd capitalize the word.

[vernotixas]

When using japanese words in english sentences, do we capitalize them? (kata, iaito, katana, etc) Do we use italics?

I try to use English rules, ie if you are using the Japanese word as a proper noun (name of a place or name of a person) then capitalise. I think therefore you should not capitalise kendo, because you would not capitalise soccer or baseball. But I would capitalise the name of a school. I don't know about the italics. How do we space words that are combined? (ie musoshindenryu or muso shin den ryu or musoshinden ryu) You have to identify what are the words and seperate them. Kendo is two kanji but one word. In your example I believe (but I may be wrong) that it would be Muso Shinden Ryu (I would capitalise because it is the proper name of a school).

[xanaxist]

While we are sort of on the subject, where did this DOU or DOH business come from? Did somebody change alphabet while I was sleeping and now we are using phonetic spellings? Like going to bed one night thinking about the Koran and waking up only to find out it is the Quran or some such thing. Or that dude in Libya, what's his name this week? Kadaffy, Quadaffy, Daffy duck?

[lalffibra]

Thanks for your posts everyone. I'll try to apply the "rules" as best I can to the content I'm writing.
Ignatz, I think one reason the phonetic spellings pop up (at least for japanese words) is people who may be translating from the actual japanese words as they are spelled on a word processor. If I am typing the kanji or hiragana for kendo, I actually have to type kendou to get it to come out properly. This wreaks havok for me trying to teach my English students proper spelling of English words also. They add all kinds of extra letters where they don't belong because they're writing phonetically.
Another interesting language concept is for example, are they iaido kata or gata? I've seen reference to both.
I also find some people inventing their own words based on what they think kanji represents. From what I've learned from the Japanse people I've asked, is it's perfectly okay to say people who practice judo are judoka, karate are karateka. However, people doing iaido are not referred to as iaidoka in Japan. Strange isn't it? On these forums and most English pages however, you often can find this word used. Is it correct? I don't know. I guess when I'm in doubt about some of these words, I usually just ask the sensei and senior fellows at the dojo.
Language is a funny thing....

[Feloascarlelt]

All the problems of spelling Japanese words into English is that there is no one common system for romanji. Some systems use the exact spelling that matches up with the hiragana characters. Other systems use the phonetic sound. For example, chiya versus cha or even chya. It's annoying to have to spend time figuring out what spelling system the dictionary/computer program/website/whatever is using to get it to think in the proper terms. I vote that one specific system be used for romanji. The challenge is how to implement it 'cause it won't magically change over night.