Common Misinterpretations of Ryu - 琉 vs 流

First and foremost, many people don’t understand that the Japanese and the Okinawan languages are full of words that sound the same.  Homonyms are quite common in English, but in a phonetic language like Japanese and Okinawan, there are tons of them.  Just ask a foreigner to spell there, their or they're in rapid succession and see what happens without any context.  The standard sound that we use frequently and pronounce in English as Ryu is one in particular that can have many meanings.  People without in depth knowledge quite frequently think, because they all sound the same, that they all use the same character (kanji) and therefore merge things that shouldn’t be merged.

Today’s example of Ryu is just one which, in the life protection arts, is frequently misinterpreted or misquoted.  If you are going to study the arts, I think it really helps to study the language a bit.  I’m not saying master it, but study it a bit at least.  Enough to understand little nuances like this, particularly before you start spouting things as facts.  Using the “My instructor told me” excuse does not go far when you are teaching generations of people inaccuracies that become the norm.  This is a shame when carrying on the historical significance of the style.  

I would recommend the purchase of a large kanji dictionary.  Something such as the New Nelson or the Spahn/Hadamitzky variety.  Purchase the big, giant heavy dictionary that has everything in it, weighs a ton and isn’t cheap.  The handbooks, learner’s dictionaries, beginner’s, essential and other such dictionaries just do not have all the information you need.  Words in the life protection arts tend to be less common, so you are not going to find what you need most of the time in the smaller book.

琉  

The common Ryu of which I am speaking is the Ryu in Ryukyu, the island chain that so much of our arts came from.  We all, in this art, should know that you combine this with a particular Kyu, and you get Ryukyu (琉球.  You can find THIS ryu as number 3642 in the New Nelson dictionary, 2939 in the Classic Nelson, and a FEW other dictionaries of course.  Most of the smaller dictionaries will not have this character which adds to the confusion.  Now THIS ryu means “gem; lapis lazuli; precious stone.”  On the left side of this character is 王 and is what is called a radical.  I won’t go into details on radicals, but each kanji is made up of little parts.  This radical’s meaning is king, magnate or rule.

流 

The other common Ryu which people strip the definition from and attach to our ryu is the one shown here.  As you can see on the left side, it has a different radical.  The sanzui radical 氵is representative of water.  This particular ryu kanji can be found in the New Nelson dictionary as 3160 and 2576 in the Classic Nelson.  This particular kanji is more common in general language, and is found in almost every dictionary you can find.  It can mean current, flow, float, a sink, forfeit.  

So here is what commonly happens and what I hear frequently from people.  "RyuTe® means flowing hand."  This is not correct.  Though the phonetic sound of the Ryu in RyuTe® is the same as the Ryu for flowing, these are not one in the same.  A completely different character is in use.  The Ryu in RyuTe® is solely based off of the Ryu used in the Ryukyu Kingdom.  It does not have any connection to flowing other than phonetic.  Taika, in picking the name of Ryu, liked the fact that the phonetic Ryu could have a double meaning.   This is common in human nature and is done by many people and businesses branding a product.  There are many other characters pronounced as Ryu.  The two I've shown just share similar traits.  Add to that the cursive style of writing, and it is hard to separate the two.  The two characters, however, are completely different.