Sword Translation Help- But I Am Failing Trying By Myself

[Daso]

Hello All,

 

So I printed out the Rich Turner Kanji sheet and I printed these photos and even reduced them in size so I could run each character along side the list and I don't know if I'm blind, completely missing things or just don't have the matching skills I thought.  Here are three auction swords in Gunto fittings, one has an unusually short cut off nakago (shorter than I've seen so far) and the others are hard to read.  Is it me or are these decipherable? Only on Unknown mei #1 photo do I think I read (and only partially) Naga , couldn't read, Shi, Masa, couldn't read, couldn't read Couldn't read. Very frustrating.  Any tips on an easy way to compare signatures? Thanks,

Darius

 

 

[Stephen]

Yoshikuni is the smith, id pic up a Yumoto book or Dobree, the kanji looks more like its cut

[Daso]

Stephen,  Thanks, Which one of the 4 images is the Yoshikuni (so I can try again) ?  Are there any particular Yumoto or Dobree books I should be looking for?

[Mark]

first picture last 2 kanji are yoshikuni, 3rd sword is Masahide, lots of info on him as he is a big name

[Stephen]

 

book on right is The Samurai Sword by John Yumoto on Amazon about 20$ 

book on left is Japanese Sword Blades by Alfred Dobree, some wiil try to rip you off hold out until you find one for under 20$ if i can get the old XP to fire i have the table saved there 

 

Kuni is K7

 

you can see Yoshi on far right in Johns book.

[Stephen]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Japanese-Sword-Blades-book-by-Alfred-Dobree-1974-Reference-Book-/381645654836?hash=item58dbda8b34:g:GHUAAOSw9KpXAAsa

 

looks like a photo copy 

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=samurai+sword+yumoto&_sacat=0

 

early editions have better paper stock

[ROKUJURO]

Darius,

you were on the right track: Third photo: SUISHINSHI MASAHIDE 

[Daso]

Wow, Thanks.  I need to get this down.

[Daso]

kanjibooks.jpg

 

book on right is The Samurai Sword by John Yumoto on Amazon about 20$ 

book on left is Japanese Sword Blades by Alfred Dobree, some wiil try to rip you off hold out until you find one for under 20$ if i can get the old XP to fire i have the table saved there 

 

Kuni is K7

 

you can see Yoshi on far right in Johns book.

Thanks, I guess I have to understand where the name starts or just be able to pick up the characters more easily.  I'm tempted to just buy the one you linked on Ebay.

[Daso]

Now I feel stupid, I have the Yumoto book, it's the first one I bought years ago.  Is the Dobree book good in addition or not necessary.  I have Markus Sesko's index of swordsmiths, but I guess that doesn't help with reading the Mei.

[SteveM]

Tips for deciphering:

1. Generally speaking, mei usually include location + smith's name, in that order. The location will usually include the old domain/province name. A few domains were prolific sword-producing locations, and so these names appear more frequently than others (Mino, Bizen, Bungo, etc...). Once you have input the province names in your head, you can usually pick out the location. 

2. If you pick out the province name, the personal/art name of the smith usually follows, and is usually a two-kanji name. However, smiths often added "Fujiwara" to their names as an allusion to an old noble family - kind of like me saying I'm "Steve M of the House of Windsor". 

3. Certain names are associated with certain provinces. The Kanji 兼 (Kane) is a component of names that are associated with Mino province, for example. Once you have nailed the province/domain, it might give you a hint as to the name of the smith - or at least a part of it.

4. Unfortunately for us, many smiths inscribed their names using a cursive style, which means the kanji don't appear as they would in a normal font. On the positive side, the cursive styles followed certain conventions, and so there tends to be a certain similarity to how the kanji appear. Again, I'm thinking of kanji like 兼、光、國、義

 

Now that you have some basic rules-of-thumb, we can throw them all out the window when we look at the three swords you've posted. 

 

1. Your first sword is a Showa-to (war-era). These mei are often very choppy, like the one in your picture. Its as if the smiths didn't have the time to carve careful, delicate lines into the steel, and instead just used a sort of shorthand, employing a severe economy of short, hasty strokes The one in the picture also doesn't follow the above rule of location + name. It is just the smith's name. The good thing is that modern swords normally don't have mei that are eroded or obscured by rust, and so there is less guesswork. 

2. Your second sword uses an alternative name for the location - you'll pick this up with practice and as you see more and more swords. It is cut off just before the smith's name, although with this particular location name being used, one might be able to deduce who the smith is. (You can tell it is cut off at the location name because the final kanji is 住, indicated that everything above that is address (basically), and everything below that will be name. 

3. Your third sword doesn't have a location, and has a 5-kanji art name. The thing with this one is, the art name is such a big name that you will become used to it as you look at more and more swords. 

[Stephen]

Dobree...you tell me

[Daso]

Tips for deciphering:

1. Generally speaking, mei usually include location + smith's name, in that order. The location will usually include the old domain/province name. A few domains were prolific sword-producing locations, and so these names appear more frequently than others (Mino, Bizen, Bungo, etc...). Once you have input the province names in your head, you can usually pick out the location.

2. If you pick out the province name, the personal/art name of the smith usually follows, and is usually a two-kanji name. However, smiths often added "Fujiwara" to their names as an allusion to an old noble family - kind of like me saying I'm "Steve M of the House of Windsor".

3. Certain names are associated with certain provinces. The Kanji 兼 (Kane) is a component of names that are associated with Mino province, for example. Once you have nailed the province/domain, it might give you a hint as to the name of the smith - or at least a part of it.

4. Unfortunately for us, many smiths inscribed their names using a cursive style, which means the kanji don't appear as they would in a normal font. On the positive side, the cursive styles followed certain conventions, and so there tends to be a certain similarity to how the kanji appear. Again, I'm thinking of kanji like 兼、光、國、義

 

Now that you have some basic rules-of-thumb, we can throw them all out the window when we look at the three swords you've posted.

 

1. Your first sword is a Showa-to (war-era). These mei are often very choppy, like the one in your picture. Its as if the smiths didn't have the time to carve careful, delicate lines into the steel, and instead just used a sort of shorthand, employing a severe economy of short, hasty strokes The one in the picture also doesn't follow the above rule of location + name. It is just the smith's name. The good thing is that modern swords normally don't have mei that are eroded or obscured by rust, and so there is less guesswork.

2. Your second sword uses an alternative name for the location - you'll pick this up with practice and as you see more and more swords. It is cut off just before the smith's name, although with this particular location name being used, one might be able to deduce who the smith is. (You can tell it is cut off at the location name because the final kanji is 住, indicated that everything above that is address (basically), and everything below that will be name.

3. Your third sword doesn't have a location, and has a 5-kanji art name. The thing with this one is, the art name is such a big name that you will become used to it as you look at more and more swords.

Incredibly helpful, a better and easier to understand primer than any book I've read so far. Thanks.

[Daso]

Dobree...you tell me

Will compare when i get home. Thanks again.

[Daso]

Dobree...you tell me

I think the Yumoto book pages are too small to easily see many characters. I also bought The Sword of Japan and the suggestion of an NMB member and think its larger paperback form is similar to the dobree book, what do you think?

[Stephen]

Its ok but what was i showing you ?

[SAS]

Location, location, location.....

[Shugyosha]

Hi Darius,

 

The key to this is to keep chipping away at it. It's incredibly daunting at first but it is possible to make progress and in reality you don't need to know the kanji themselves, but how to look them up.

 

One thing that really opened my eyes was a beginners' guide called "Let's Learn Kanji" which gets you into the idea of counting strokes for kanji and their radicals (most complex kanji are comprised of smaller elements which crop up repeatedly one of which dictates the broad meaning of the kanji).

 

I found that knowing some nuts and bolts made life a lot easier, though now I'm determined to be able to read Japanese so it's taken me off on a tangent.

 

If you haven't done so already, have a look at Markus Sesko's Nihonto Compendium in the research tab above which gives the kanji and cursive versions of them. Also a book like Shinto Bengi Oshigata is great for practice as the mei are clear and there are lots of different ones.

 

Hope that helps: it's a big elephant but it can be eaten one bite at a time.

 

Best,

John

[Daso]

Hi Darius,

 

The key to this is to keep chipping away at it. It's incredibly daunting at first but it is possible to make progress and in reality you don't need to know the kanji themselves, but how to look them up.

 

One thing that really opened my eyes was a beginners' guide called "Let's Learn Kanji" which gets you into the idea of counting strokes for kanji and their radicals (most complex kanji are comprised of smaller elements which crop up repeatedly one of which dictates the broad meaning of the kanji).

 

I found that knowing some nuts and bolts made life a lot easier, though now I'm determined to be able to read Japanese so it's taken me off on a tangent.

 

If you haven't done so already, have a look at Markus Sesko's Nihonto Compendium in the research tab above which gives the kanji and cursive versions of them. Also a book like Shinto Bengi Oshigata is great for practice as the mei are clear and there are lots of different ones.

 

Hope that helps: it's a big elephant but it can be eaten one bite at a time.

 

Best,

John

John,  Thanks.  It is daunting, but I will take it in small steps as suggested.  Certain things will start to commit to memory as well as I move along. 

[Surfson]

Dash, Steve gave you a very nice guide.  I would only add a couple of points.  One point is that the two most important kanji are the name of the smith, and these kanji usually, but not always as mentioned, appear at the end of the signature, sometimes followed by saku (made by) or kore saku (this made by).  Finding those two kanji is best route for a relative novice to figuring out the whole signature since once you have those two you can look him up in a book like Hawley's and narrow it down to a handful, or at most dozens of smiths signing with that name.  You can then search for the other kanji that precede the smiths name in a longer signature browsing down the list of names in Hawley's.  So, an early goal is to memorize as many of the characters that go into the two character name.  Back in the day, Grey Doffin made a set of kanji flash cards that were specifically geared toward kanji that appeared frequently in smith's names.  I don't know if he still has them (hopefully he does), but I found those to be very useful when I was at your stage.   Going through them repeatedly helped me to learn how to find the key name of the smith.  Grey is on the NMB - you might see if he still has those or if a NMB member has an old set to pass along.  Cheers, Bob

[IanB]

Darius,  I would add to what Steve and Robert have said by adding that there are a very few kanji that are easily remembered and which will identify the parts of a signature. I know there are exceptions, but what follows works the vast majority of times. The smith's working name will be two characters, either at the bottom of the signature or followed by saku　作, tsukeru　造　or saku kore  作之  -  all of which mean 'made' or 'made this' . Higher up in the signature may be ju 住, meaning 'living at' or sometimes 住人, 'inhabitant of', both of which follow the smith's address - so above either of these will be a province or province plus a town name. All the provinces have two character names but were often abbreviated to one kanji plus shu 州. So if you see shu then you know its a province. If there are more kanji above ju, there will be a town name under the province name as well. Finally there is kuni 国 which sometimes follows the province name, written as a box with all manner of ticks and lines inside. Again it tells you that the two characters above it is a province name but it is often used as part of a smith's name, but that will be below ju so it shouldn't confuse. 

Hope that helps.

Ian Bottomley

[Daso]

Thank you everyone all extremely helpful.I have a much clearer understanding of how to look. Now I have to familiarize myself.

[Daso]

Dash, Steve gave you a very nice guide.  I would only add a couple of points.  One point is that the two most important kanji are the name of the smith, and these kanji usually, but not always as mentioned, appear at the end of the signature, sometimes followed by saku (made by) or kore saku (this made by).  Finding those two kanji is best route for a relative novice to figuring out the whole signature since once you have those two you can look him up in a book like Hawley's and narrow it down to a handful, or at most dozens of smiths signing with that name.  You can then search for the other kanji that precede the smiths name in a longer signature browsing down the list of names in Hawley's.  So, an early goal is to memorize as many of the characters that go into the two character name.  Back in the day, Grey Doffin made a set of kanji flash cards that were specifically geared toward kanji that appeared frequently in smith's names.  I don't know if he still has them (hopefully he does), but I found those to be very useful when I was at your stage.   Going through them repeatedly helped me to learn how to find the key name of the smith.  Grey is on the NMB - you might see if he still has those or if a NMB member has an old set to pass along.  Cheers, Bob

Surfson,

 

Unfortunately Grey just emailed me back that Kanji flash cards  are out of print. Do you know what they were called exactly or if they were in English?  I did a search and found a bunch of regular kanji flash cards but none like you mentioned. I'd love to find those.  Thanks,

Darius

[Stephen]

Look no farther, yours for twenty plus 6 for shipping, same what Grey charged. PM for details  

[Daso]

Look no farther, yours for twenty plus 6 for shipping, same what Grey charged. PM for details

Stephen, PM sent. Thanks.