© Copyright Robert Cole 2014 - No copying or distributing

NOMENCLATURE

Assoon as one first comes in contact with sword collectors or traders, one observes that, by common interest, they form a network community that extends worldwide. Generally, collectors local to an area are friends or know of each other. They speak the same language. That language is sword terms.

One should learn to address and think of the sword, and all of its associated articles and history, in these terms.

Note: While there is a wide range of equally appropriate sword terms, individuals develop of these a descriptive vocabulary with which they feel personally comfortable. Terms in this book are those that are in common use.

For those unfamiliar with Japanese:

        A is pronounced (ah).
        I is pronounced (ee).
        U is pronounced (oo). Often "U" is near silent.
        E is pronounced (eh).
        O is pronounced (oh). 

A character of Japanese may represent one or more phonemes where one or more English letters might present only a single syllable. It becomes easy for an English speaking person to mispronounce Japanese words rendered in written English. Therefore it is wise that one associate the English represented phonetic to its Japanese counterpart in KANJI.

Example:
NAKAGO is not pronounced, "NA-KAGO," it is pronounced, "NAKA-GO."

KATANA is not pronounced, "KA-TANA," it is pronounced, "KA-TA-NA."

A good rule of thumb for pronouncing Japanese is to enunciate with an absence of accented syllable.

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