origin of karate

[Zauriel]

I have found various etymologies of the word "Karate" on different websites.

Te is Japanese for "hand". Okinawan Te is a martial art and precursor of Karate. But kara means empty, right?

some sources say Karate means "China hand" or "Chinese hand" because Karate is formed from the mixture of Okinawan Te and Chinese martial arts.

Some more source say Karate is written as "Tang hand" from the Chinese Tang dynasty

But other sources from dictionaries say Karate means "empty hand" in Japanese and mention that Kara means "empty".

I found out that on another website it says Karate-dô means "China Hand Way" but it was changed from ‘China Hand Way’ to ‘Empty Hand Way’

Can anyone confirm or correct and explain what I have learned about Karate?

[jarrettmeyer]

Where's the John Sells book when I need it???

[y2_sub]

Karate originally means Chinese hand , It was pronounced to de (spelling ??? ) in Okinawa , when Mas. Funakushi first introduced karate to Japan , he change the karate’s kanji from Chinese hand to empty hand .

[P.A.L]

my chinese girl friend read the two character on the top of this page " kon"(empty) "sho"(hand), which is same as "kara" "te" (empty hand) she couldn't anything related to "china" or "taang" in this character, unless they have changed the Kenji but i can't find any old picture showing it,

what i found later is another kenji of these to character in "Pat McCarthy" book "classical kata of okinawan karate" , now she reads this "taang"( refer to taang dinasty in china) "shu"(hand),

so it seems the original kenji is "taang shu" means China hand or something related to china.

of course Funakushi was not able to present his art as "chinese hand" in 1920's(not sure) japan.

[Jussi Häkkinen]

Funakoshi didn't make the change. Name "karate", written with kanji that meaned "empty hand", was already known in Okinawa in 1905, when Hanashiro Chomo published "Karate Shoshu Hen". The use of the very way of writing it (empty hand) in the name of publication indicates that it was already a known name for the tradition.

[y2_sub]

As far as i know , Funakoshi did change the kanji from chinese hand (or tang hand ) to empty hand

[ShotokanKid]

Yes, he did change the kanji so it read empty instead of Chinese. He talks about this in his autobiography

[Shorin Ryuu]

Using the search button...

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=18002&highlight=kara+chinese

This is a fairly common question.

The term karate in use today comes from "kara" (empty) and "te" (hand). This was actually only officially adopted in 1936 in order to provide a more appealing name and simply just to adopt a common name for it in the first place. Before then, it could have been called karate (kara actually referring to China) although the first mention of "karate" in a published text was in the early 1900s, I believe. A much more common way of pronouncing it was toude/toute/toudi ("tou" being the same character as "kara") depending on whether you were speaking Okinawan or Japanese. Further still, it could have just been referred to as ti (te). Usually, the more Chinese influenced styles were referred to as toudi, although this wasn't necessarily a strict rule, either. Plus Chinese influence came in many waves, so much of that is even subjective.

The "China" referred to in the segment above is the same "China" as "Tang" (referencing the Tang Dynasty but still meaning "China" in general). The text mentioned above was the Hanashiro Chomo text. In other words, "karate" meaning empty hand is still rather new, even if it was in place before Funakoshi and/or the 1936 meeting.

[kzshin]

Currently, Karate = Kara-te (in japanese) Kon sho tao (in Mandarin Chinese)

Long time ago, it was To-te (in Japanee), or Tang-sho (in chinese) Which was translated to China Hand. However, Literally it doesn't mean China Hand, It's acutally mean Tang Hand. Tang is a dynasty in China, and it was the time that the Chinese culture was most flourished and first really spread to Japan and Okinawa. So most Japanese refer Tang as Chinese. Therefore Tang Hand, To-te has been translated to Chinese hand, and later on Japanese change it to Karat-te, to make it more Japanese. And yes, the kanji was changed from To-te to Karate te. So the interesting thing is. When you read Karate in chinese now, become Kon sho tao. And other interesting thing is, if you mention Kong sho tao to chinese, most people know, but if you mention Tang sho do, not many people know.

[Jussi Häkkinen]

When it comes to Funakoshi being the first to use the "Empty hand" -kanji: Wrong, again. As I said, Hanashiro Chomo used that writing form already in his 1905 publication "Karate Shoshu Hen". Since the writing form was used in the name of publication, it most probably has been known in that purpose already.

For the reference: http://www.fightingarts.com/reading/article.php?id=100

Funakoshi begun using that writing form a lot later.