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Re: Out of wind. [Re: Jay White Cloud] #33943 08/25/16 02:48 PM
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Chris Hall Offline
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Posting up links to Google Translate pages - you must be joking. Google Translate is notoriously poor when it comes to Japanese-English translation. I would not agree that it has gotten better each year. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that it has a very long way to go yet.

Quote:
I don't believe I would disagree with you Chris...and perhaps as a Romanized translation of the word, that perhaps could be the first example...however...it isn't the only one that is correct...as it has been explained to me.

I can share...from native language speakers (and my notes as well as computer based translators including Googles that only seems to get better each year) that... "Sumidzuke" comes up just as often.

On checking, it was explained to me that both are acceptable spellings.


I was really talking about how those characters for sumitsuke would be rendered in hiragana, since, if you look up kanji in a Japanese dictionary, the pronunciation for the character is rendered in hiragana (or katakana as the case may be). Romanizations of Japanese can only derive from the hiragana/katakana.

The issue here seems to be whether the character which stands alone as 'tsuke' is read as '~tsuke' or '~dzuke' as a suffix, when appended to 'sumi'. Correct? I realize that this will seem like some insanely minor and obscure detail to many reading this, but it is not so if you are a student of the Japanese language, so please bear with me.

I'll try to illustrate the issue firstly with a relevant example - and apologies to those for whom this is old hat. Take a word beginning with the 'su' sound, such as 'sushi'. When the word 'sushi' forms a suffix, the 'su' sound is voiced as 'zu', as in maki-zushi (rolled sushi). The sound 'su' has a hiragana character representing it, and the sound 'zu' has the same hiragana character with a couple of tick marks added above, indicating that it is to be voiced as 'zu'.

The same pairing occurs with the phoneme 'tsu', which as the initial consonant of a suffix may, at times, be voiced as 'dzu'.

Romanizations attempt to convey these voice shifts by their spelling.

This phenomenon of these voice shifts is called rendaku in Japanese. This area of Japanese is a bit of a minefield - as the wiki link mentions, "it's unpredictable".

Such is the case for sumitsuke. I might add it is the same situation as well for another relevant pair, namely 'sumi' + 'tsubo' - a 'sumitsubo' or Japanese inkline. It is never written as 'sumidzubo' - and again, I'm talking about how the word is rendered in hiragana.

Looking through the link on rendaku provided above, I do believe the reason sumitsuke is not rendered as sumidzuke is 'Lyman's Law'.

By the standard logic of how rendaku is manifest, both sumitsuke and sumitsubo might be voiced as, and written as 'sumidzuke' and sumidzubo', but they are not, at least not according to Japanese dictionaries. That's why I asked you to provide a reference to a Japanese language source for that, not 'Google Translate', and not "as was explained to me". Japanese people are, it would be worth noting, no more expert on their own language than English speakers are experts on their own. That is to say, expertise varies widely. Many English speakers miss-spell and mispronounce English. We all know that. Imagine if a Japanese person sought guidance as to how to spell or pronounce an English word from an English speaker who was not all that savvy about their own language?

And hearing a thing secondhand does start a process of telephone as we all know.

Again, I said simply, show me a link to a Japanese dictionary which shows a hiragana spelling of the kanji for sumitsuke as sumidzuke. The Japanese dictionary entry, just like our English dictionaries, will indicate the preferred pronunciation for any word listed. If you don't have that, the rest is, I'm afraid, waffling.


My blog on carpentry practice, East and West:

https://thecarpentryway.blog
Re: Out of wind. [Re: jjboudreau19] #33944 08/25/16 03:49 PM
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Chris Hall Offline
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By the way, if you're curious about how good Google Translate might be, a good test is to input an English passage, have it translate it to Japanese, and then take that result and translate it back into English. The fidelity of the result give you a god idea about how good the translation software might be.

I chose the following two stanzas from a Children's nursery rhyme

Quote:
Mary had a little lamb,
His fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.

He followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.


Into Japanese and back again, and we have the following:

Quote:
Mary had a little lamb,
His fleece is was white as snow
Mary, that you are everywhere I went
Lamb was please do go.

He was chasing her on the day of school
This was opposed to the rule
Made to play it, children and laughter
Please refer to the lamb at school.


It's not too bad, I suppose, especially if you already know the English version and can compare, but consider that the diction is appropriate to a young child. It does a lot worse with more sophisticated language as adults might use.


My blog on carpentry practice, East and West:

https://thecarpentryway.blog
Re: Out of wind. [Re: Chris Hall] #33945 08/25/16 08:02 PM
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Jay White Cloud Offline
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Originally Posted By: Chris Hall
Japanese people are, it would be worth noting, no more expert on their own language than English speakers are experts on their own.



I don't disagree with that...in general academic terms Chris...per se.

Nevertheless, I want to know and understand how native speakers talk (aka Mainers and Texans...or the common folk) way more than I want to debate academics on the deeper...opinions...of language deconstruction and purely Dictionarial Formats of a standard linguistic format as found in exclusively pedagogical venue.

I need (and want) to "correspond with" native speakers the best I am able and take their general guidance in this matters of...how they themselves speak. Kind of..."the person in the street..." (or workshop) speaking the language mindset. Douglas Brooks (et al) shared this logic with me a long time ago when learning any conversational aspects of a language.

Chris, I know you are very passionate about the Japanese language, and I already offered that I am sure you speak it (in your own way) much better than I do by far. We are now very much getting into the academic details of linguistics and semantics however...I think

As to your opinion of Google you have all the right to those beliefs. My sources I offered in the former post are relatively substantial in not only academic circles, but in teaching and learning to speak Second Tongue Languages. Again, if you do not value that to some degree, I won't debate it. I clearly don't agree on some points, yet overall have no umbridge with your views in general. The details of your language mechanical deconstruct (linguistically) is sound in context. I would turn to you, post haste, as a source... should I ever really need such a deeper understanding of something I am failing to grasp on such matters for your view of it. I know a number of Language teachers however, that would agree with me on much of what I wrote above in the other posts...when...just trying to get folks speaking passably another language.

Is the free software Google offers perhaps the best? I would say for free software that all can access pretty easily...it is considered so by many (most?) It is good and trying to get better. I would point out that I don't just study Japanese, but several of Asian languages (et al) almost exclusively as a...Street Speaker, and to be able to do better research in these cultures arts and building systems from that perspective. I am not a Linguist, nor claim to be one by any standard, nor is that my goal.

I am (or have been) around native speakers on fair occasion and in direct contact with some often enough that their guidance and assistance (as reflected in what limited citing I did in the previous post reflects) seems to get me by well enough. I don't think I can do better than I have on this topic since you disagree with the sources I have offered...and since that is the case, offering more would only detract from the post topic...which isn't Japanese translation esoteric breakdowns...but layout systems and how the are employed.

Re: Out of wind. [Re: jjboudreau19] #33946 08/25/16 10:22 PM
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Chris Hall Offline
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Evidently you cannot show a link to a Japanese dictionary in regards to that word. Don't worry about it.

I don't use translation software to any significant extent. Almost always my method is old school, read the text, look up words/kanji I don't know in the dictionary, or, increasingly of late, online sources, such as unihan, Jim Breen's JDic Lawrence Howell's Kanji Networks, etc..

Note that my observation in regards to the word 'sumitsuke' was initially offered as a 'quibble', a slight objection. Wasn't intending to get into a discussion of linguistics.

I didn't want to delve into the topic of layout systems as such, and in fact do not find myself in concordance with your expressed views in regards to Japanese layout methods. That topic as such, seems outside the OP topic, which was concerning how much wind is too much.

If sumitsuke - putting lines on wood - is of interest to you, and you have spent time delving in, sufficient to the point where you feel informed enough to assert a conviction about what it is about and how it is employed, then I presume a certain depth of study on your part has been obtained. Layout is a topic of great interest to me, and as a student of that topic myself, I have made many different models to explore various areas of study. I'm currently studying layout from some French texts. It's an endless topic. I've shared many of those past studies on my blog and would happily share pictures of various things I've studied and made here too. I'd be interested to see your study projects, to get a sense of where you are actually at. I'd also be interested to see which writings on sumitsuke you have studied, so some of your descriptive geometry work, and so forth.

The most basic of all layout work, beyond snapping straight lines on timbers and laying out joinery, would be hoppers, then splayed post work, followed by regular hip roof work. But, to be at a point of actual depth in the topic of layout, one would need to have good familiarity with irregular construction, polygonal construction, and curved construction. All of those mentioned above are parts of the 'Asian' traditions you espouse. Keen to see examples of your study or work in that regard, and happy to discuss such issues further.


My blog on carpentry practice, East and West:

https://thecarpentryway.blog
Re: Out of wind. [Re: jjboudreau19] #33948 08/26/16 02:22 AM
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Jay White Cloud Offline
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Hi Chris,

I responded offline to not distract further...

Regards,

j

Re: Out of wind. [Re: jjboudreau19] #33949 08/27/16 02:18 PM
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Will B Offline
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For another view, see Michael Anderson's three articles on sumitsuki in issues 26, 28 & 29 in Timber Framing (also in the Guild's Joinery & Design Workbook, Vol. 2, I think.

Here's a short passage:

"JAPANESE layout has used the center line, square rule method since hundreds of years before
industry arrived along with Admiral Perry’s
black ships. The method, historically as well as
in present-day Japan, seems to have been little
affected by whether regular or irregular timbers
were employed. In fact, in pre-industrial
times, one of the advantages of employing a
method based on vertical and horizontal center
lines was the ability to use less expensive
unshaped material wherever possible. The same
layout techniques are as useful for marking
precisely-dimensioned timbers as for the rough
logs of the koyabari roof framing, though the
latter require additional techniques.
Even the old farmhouses or minka, famous
for their irregular spans and timber dimensions,
were laid out according to square rule.
There is another reason why a scribe method
was and is used only in special situations in
Japan. Japan is a small country. The houses are
small, the cars are small, the builder’s yards are
small. Nearby where I live on a well-traveled
road, there is a patch of ground with a lean-to
roof over it some 8 ft. deep by 20 ft. long. In
this small space a single carpenter, working
alone, manages to mark and cut the entire
frame. There simply is no space to maneuver."

Re: Out of wind. [Re: jjboudreau19] #33950 08/27/16 06:55 PM
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Hylandwoodcraft Offline
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Thanks Will, for posting that. I'll read the articles and have more questions I'm sure.

Re: Out of wind. [Re: jjboudreau19] #33951 08/28/16 01:55 PM
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Will B Offline
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You can see how this contributes to my impression that there are cultural variations (including edge and centerline) of just two layout systems - scribe and square rule - even though those terms are modern and the systems go back hundreds of years.

Re: Out of wind. [Re: Will B] #33957 08/30/16 11:48 PM
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Jay White Cloud Offline
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Thanks much Will for that blast from the past...

I lost all my old issues of the Journal in a break alas and will have to wait to get back to a Library copy to refresh my memory in more detail.

From the passage above, I can more than see why your impression of the method would overlap in your mind. I can not say I agree with it fully in my view, yet acknowledge (to no small degree) we are delving deeply into perhaps academic understandings where there is not a correct or incorrect perspective (perhaps?) of intricacies within comparatives of these layout systems.

Indeed...if...just considering the Japanese method of Line Layout by itself (which is much older than a few hundred years of Perry's time frame, and much more like 2000 plus (perhaps more or just around that time) which does indeed almost exclusively use a Sashigane framing square (much lighter and more flexible from modern Western Squares) that is employed to switch from side to side of the layout line to wrap a perpendicular mark around the timber...then indeed I could understand perhaps having an understanding why one would think or determine that Line Rule and Square Rule are one and the same...

As I am deep into a project and traveling, and this is a fascinating topic that deserves more than a small blurb entry, I will make a much better effort to offer more than I have in this entry.

I will end with, other than the history of Line Rule predating the modalities within Edge Rule (the more germane term I feel...yet perhaps not...??...I want to examine some old text at Dartmouth that Ed Levine shared with me years ago to confirm that..) by several millenia...there is much, much more to this historical story. Line Rule's lineage seems to suggest coming a long way (perhaps as far as Egypt...more to examine there) by way of India, China and then through Korean peninsula. Where it has more similarities to how it evolved in Japan once arriving with travelers from the mainland...than it does to taking a timber and using a reference edge (or plane) to create a point of demarcation referral to unify and standardize joinery, which was a step toward mass production and away from Scribe Rule. This historical time periods was bent on Industrial Revolutionary homogenization of craft and bespoke work found with Scribe Rule methods.

In the long history of Line Rule, which might well have been (and still might be..??) done more often in the round and/or live edge than in canted timber they often employ a layout tool more akin to a T Square than a square as we know it. In some regions other methods are used that don't resemble a T or any form of Square type layout tool at all. I for one don't and do not teach that method, yet instead employ a "Wrapping Template" of sorts. One I have seen similar to in the hands of more folk based Timberwrights that have been created from paper and even (it would seem??) a type of velum. One could argue that this then still makes it a...Square Rule...method, yet the context would be inaccurate (in my view) from the intent of method overall within its depths compared to historical Edge Rule. Again, making this conversation more academic than correct or incorrect in perspective.

Much thanks again for sharing that passage.

Re: Out of wind. [Re: jjboudreau19] #33958 08/31/16 12:45 AM
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Hylandwoodcraft Offline
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Just got my copy of Timber Frame Joinery and Design Volume 2 in the mail, as I didn't have that yet. It really breaks my heart to have to buy another book! grin
It'll be a few days before I can get into it, but I'll be interested in the read and will get back in detail soon...

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