The Yakuza

[tactical-nuke]

not really a martial arts question, or even a question on chinese culture.
but i couldnt find a solid answer elsewhere and its a short question so it shouldnt clog anything up

why the hell are the yakuza called the yakuza ? what i have read on wikipedia has said it is to do with a card game similar to black jack where the worst cards possible to draw are 8 9 3 which should be hachi kyu san
or thats the way i was taught to say it whenever i have learnt japanese from anyone (there was a japanese woman at my school who taught me a little bit as a hobby and i've done karate classes before as a child where the instructions were shouted out in japanese) and through watching japanese films and anime.

but apparently according to what everyone else thinks (apart from all the people who i have ever seen who have spoken japanese who use normal japanese pronounciations for numbers) the numbers 8 9 3 are supposedly pronounced

ya ku za.

my only answer to this is that maybe the criminal gangs of japan have their own way of pronouncing things similar to maybe crips not using words that have the letter B at the front (yes that happens) and vice versa e.g im going for a bigarette
or im gonna go take a cath. (yes really)


can anyone here clear this up

hachi kyu san

or ya ku za


any help greatly appreciated

[Lebaufist]

Probably an Anglo urban legend, but I always thought Yakuza had something to do with snake eyes. As in pitching ones on a dice.

[Lucas]

Read this book.

Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia

[TenTigers]

from what I've googled, it is in a different dialect.

[wenshu]

http://www.japansubculture.com/resources/

http://www.amazon.com/Tokyo-Vice-Ame.../dp/0307378799

[hskwarrior]

I personally believe that YAKUZA was derived from a really hip japanese gangster hearing some american gangster calling out to his home boy..."YO! Cuzzo!" and it kinda came out like Ya! Kuza!!!

[Lucas]

OP on the right trail...

[brothernumber9]

The old japanese reading of the chinese kanji for eight is "yat" instead of hachi. I don't know why, I think it has something to do with adopting only certain Chinese pronounciations of some kanji.
So you have, Yat-Kyu-San, or slangishly spoken "ya-ku-sa".

[Mr Punch]

Never heard of 'yat' but 'ya' and 'ha' are common. It's a verbal shorthand, don't know whether it comes from a different on-yomi (reading of the original Chinese - often vary according to different dialects of Chinese; e.g. ichou/gin-nan being Japanese readings for Cantonese and Mandarin for 'gingko', the maidenhair tree. BTW, in English we've mixed the two: the 'chou' is also read 'ko' and the 'ging' comes from 'gin').

The short forms of numbers are used for quick counting and times tables, mnemonics like for adverts, and saying prices.

E.g.

I-kyu-pa (1-9-8: One thousand nine hundred and eighty yen)

Ku-no-ichi (9 no 1: female ninja)

Can't think of any phone numbers offhand, but you always see phone numbers that write short phrases to do with their business. They will also often combine English numbers with Japanese puns: like a business related to dogs may have a phone number ending - 11115, and read it 'wan wan, iiko', 'wan' being a Japanesey pronunciation of 'one', 'wanwan' being childish talk for 'dog' based on how the Japanese hear 'woof woof'(!), 'i' being another pronunciation for 'ichi' or one, 'ii' meaning 'good', and 'ko' being a deliberate mispronunciation of 'go' for five, meaning 'child', so the final 'iiko' becomes 'good boy'... Thus you could remember the number really easily, as it says, "woof woof good boy".

1 - ichi, i, wan
2 - ni, fu, tsu (from 'two')
3 - san, sa, mi
4 - yon, yo, shi
5 - go, ko
6 - roku, ro, mu
7 - nana, na
8 - ha, ya
9 - kyu, ku
0 - rei, o, zero

[GeneChing]

Slightly OT.

[QUOTE]50-man yakuza brawl broken up by 100 police leads to four arrests
Master Blaster 2 days ago



Police were luckily able to return all the fighters to Adventure Mode before any serious injuries were sustained.

Tokyo Metropolitan Police recently announced the arrest of four men from two prominent yakuza families including Takahisa Hasegawa (41) of the Matsuba-kai and Chikahiro Ito (48) of Sumiyoshi-kai.

According to initial police reports, at around 3:00am on 20 November, Ito became involved in a dispute with a taxi driver over an undisclosed matter—just as rival yakuza group member Hasegawa happened to be walking by.

Apparently disapproving of his behavior, Hasegawa began yelling at Ito, telling him that it was wrong for a member of any yakuza clan to behave in such a way towards ‘civilians’.

Well, as the old saying goes, “them’s was fightin’ words,” and a half hour later members from each family totaling around 50 met on a nearby Kabukicho street.

A photo of the scene has been floating around the internet in which police appear to be trying to break up the brawl. However, it hasn’t been confirmed to be of that particular evening. Instead here’s a dramatic reenactment from the hit video game series Yakuza (Ryu ga Gotoku).



According to ANN News, 100 officers were called in to break up the ruckus. Then, after the dust had settled, police began making enquiries and made their arrests. All four men had reportedly admitted to their crimes, however someone—I’m guessing Ito—reportedly demanded that the police issue a correction stating that it was actually he who scolded Hasegawa for his ungentlemanly behavior, and not the other way around.

After all, it’s a matter of principle.

Source: Yahoo! Japan News, TV-Asahi News (Japanese)
Video & Top Image: YouTube/zubizuva0721[/QUOTE]