- Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 10th November 2016
Because Bartitsu is a culturally eclectic, Edwardian-era self defence system, revivalists are faced with a variety of words that have fallen out of fashion over the past century or simply originate in languages other than English. Here’s a quick and easy guide to the phonetic pronunciation of some of these words:
Apaches (as in the Parisian street gangsters rather than the Native American people) – Apahsh.
Bartitsu – Bart-it-soo.
la canne – pronounced lah kahn.
jiujitsu – in Japanese, joo-jits’ (with a very lightly voiced “oo” sound at the end); in standard English adaptation, joo-jitsoo.
pugilism – soft “g”, as in pew-jill-ism.
savate – sah-vaht.
Suffragette – pronounced with a soft “g”, like suffrajet.
Vigny – we’re not certain how Pierre Vigny pronounced his surname, but most likely either Vih-nyee or Vih-nyay.
Yukio Tani – Yoo-kee-oh Tah-nee.
Sadakazu Uyenishi – Sah-dah-kah-zoo (oo)yen-ee-shee.