The term "Komi"

The term "Komi" is used in a variety of throws and actions but with seemingly different meanings and I was wondering if any more experienced members could enlighten me on the meaning or usage or the term.

classicschmosby wrote:The term "Komi" is used in a variety of throws and actions but with seemingly different meanings and I was wondering if any more experienced members could enlighten me on the meaning or usage or the term.

'-komi' 込 used as a suffix means "to be inclusive of". In combination with other nouns or verbs the two words may be translated by a single word that conveys the meaning of the combination. If 'komi' is not used as a suffix but as the first term of the compound word or binomen the meaning may be more nuanced, and the two words again may be translated by a single word.

Many kanji in Japanese or hanzi in Chinese get a somewhat different meaning when they are used in combination. That is also logical since a combination of words makes something much more defined and specific. If there is a group of people there and I call out your first name, there may well be 5 people sticking up their hands. If the group is large, let's say 200 people, it may even be so that if I call out your surname that there are still 2 people who stick up their hand, unless you have a rare surname. However, if I would call out the combination of the two, i.e. your first name and surnamen, my question becomes very well defined and it is unlikely that anyone but you will meet that criterion.

Especially in Chinese where many words are the same, except for some tone, there is a lot of chance for confusion. If you strip the word of its tone and would ask someone, what does the word 'shi' mean it is virtually impossible to answer.

So, how does one know in Chinese what it is you mean ? Partly by the context of a sentence. Let's assume the virtual word 'X'. If I then say to you: "I would like X", you have no clue what 'X' is. It could mean bear, water, food, a girl, or a verb like "wanting to hit someone in the face", you have no idea. However, if I use the same word in a very contextually defining sentence, its meaning automatically becomes more specific. For example: "It's cold outside, so I think I need to put a X on my head if I am going out". Suddenly, the words most likely possibilities become very limited and X almost needs to imply "a hat". For the sake of clarity, let's avoid situations where wordplays and absurd humor are being used.

Still, there is an issue since although it is possible for many sentences to reword them so they are very specific, it is a fact there are situations that the context cannot be made too specific because of a variety of reasons, sometimes because the definite word is not known. For example: "My car has engine trouble and I took it to the garage, and the mechanic told me that the problem is likely a broken X". This sentence is very specific. It defines the car, it defines, what happened to it, it defines that something is broken, it defines what you did, and still it is impossible to guess with reasonable likelihood what X entails. There are dozens of things that X might be. Presumably by giving a very detailed description of everything that preceded with your car it might be possible for someone with reasonable mechanical knowledge to narrow down his guess of what X precisely is, but this would make conversations very troublesome as we would need to many sentences just to make sure that a single word is understood correctly. And also, since your audience might exist of people who have zero understanding of cars and their engines, it is not certain that even with relatively extensive explanations they would know what it is you are talking about.

So, by combining two words, just like in your first name and last name, the meaning of X becomes far more specified, making it possible to convey its meaning relatively unambiguously even in relatively simple and short sentences.

An additional reason is that it allows the creation of extra words, when something new was invented. An oddity is that although most combinations of words in Chinese have brought their original meaning with in Japanese, it is not always like that, and there are binomen that exist in either language that do not exist or mean something different in the other language.

The verb komi iru 込み入る means "to push in" (in most cases), but its past tense komi itta 込み入った usually means "to be complicated". While this may sound somewhat confusing to you, every language is confusing for someone who is not fluent in the language. English is full of inconsistencies that make no sense for someone who is not a native speaker and who has only a rudimentary grasp of the English: Why is Leicester pronounced "Lester" instead of "Lei-cester" ? If that is the intent, why not simply writing "Lester" ?Most English proverbs mean nothing if you literally try to decipher them: "the guy has a short fuse" (Huh ? People in English countries are born with bodies that have fuses ?), "the guy has a chip on his shoulder" (Huh ? Why is he walking around with a chip, what kind of chip ?), "the guy is as thick as two short planks" (how thick are those planks, and why are they short, and why is the body size of someone measured to a plank instead of a measure tape ?); "the one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind" (huh ? Which member of what royal family has only one eye, and what kind of genetic birth defect do those people have ? Is it a dominant gen that affects both men and women ?)

And we can go on and on and on. In many cases English also makes no sense, although someone who is a native speaker of English or someone who has properly memorized those things as part of him studying the language has few or no problems with it. It's the same in Japanese. Japanese is very well structured with lots of rules, but if you study and master all of them then modern Japanese as written today is not so difficult.

That is as much as I can say. In brief, the meaning of 'komi' needs to be considered in combination of the word it is used with, which may modify its basic meaning. This applies for nearly all Japanese words.

For example, the binomen (combination of two kanji):

Komi-au 込み合う means to be packed or jammed (note that

Cichorei Kano wrote:

classicschmosby wrote:The term "Komi" is used in a variety of throws and actions but with seemingly different meanings and I was wondering if any more experienced members could enlighten me on the meaning or usage or the term.

'-komi' 込 used as a suffix means "to be inclusive of". In combination with other nouns or verbs the two words may be translated by a single word that conveys the meaning of the combination. If 'komi' is not used as a suffix but as the first term of the compound word or binomen the meaning may be more nuanced, and the two words again may be translated by a single word.

Many kanji in Japanese or hanzi in Chinese get a somewhat different meaning when they are used in combination. That is also logical since a combination of words makes something much more defined and specific. If there is a group of people there and I call out your first name, there may well be 5 people sticking up their hands. If the group is large, let's say 200 people, it may even be so that if I call out your surname that there are still 2 people who stick up their hand, unless you have a rare surname. However, if I would call out the combination of the two, i.e. your first name and surnamen, my question becomes very well defined and it is unlikely that anyone but you will meet that criterion.

Especially in Chinese where many words are the same, except for some tone, there is a lot of chance for confusion. If you strip the word of its tone and would ask someone, what does the word 'shi' mean it is virtually impossible to answer.

So, how does one know in Chinese what it is you mean ?  Partly by the context of a sentence. Let's assume the virtual word 'X'. If I then say to you: "I would like X", you have no clue what 'X' is. It could mean bear, water, food, a girl, or a verb like "wanting to hit someone in the face", you have no idea. However, if I use the same word in a very contextually defining sentence, its meaning automatically becomes more specific. For example: "It's cold outside, so I think I need to put a X on my head if I am going out". Suddenly, the words most likely possibilities become very limited and X almost needs to imply "a hat". For the sake of clarity, let's avoid situations where wordplays and absurd humor are being used.

Still, there is an issue since although it is possible for many sentences to reword them so they are very specific, it is a fact there are situations that the context cannot be made too specific because of a variety of reasons, sometimes because the definite word is not known. For example: "My car has engine trouble and I took it to the garage, and the mechanic told me that the problem is likely a broken X". This sentence is very specific. It defines the car, it defines, what happened to it, it defines that something is broken, it defines what you did, and still it is impossible to guess with reasonable likelihood what X entails. There are dozens of things that X might be. Presumably by giving a very detailed description of everything that preceded with your car it might be possible for someone with reasonable mechanical knowledge to narrow down his guess of what X precisely is, but this would make conversations very troublesome as we would need to many sentences just to make sure that a single word is understood correctly. And also, since your audience might exist of people who have zero understanding of cars and their engines, it is not certain that even with relatively extensive explanations they would know what it is you are talking about.

So, by combining two words, just like in your first name and last name, the meaning of X becomes far more specified, making it possible to convey its meaning relatively unambiguously even in relatively simple and short sentences.

An additional reason is that it allows the creation of extra words, when something new was invented. An oddity is that although most combinations of words in Chinese have brought their original meaning with in Japanese, it is not always like that, and there are binomen that exist in either language that do not exist or mean something different in the other language.

The verb komi iru 込み入る means "to push in" (in most cases), but its past tense komi itta 込み入った usually means "to be complicated". While this may sound somewhat confusing to you, every language is confusing for someone who is not fluent in the language. English is full of inconsistencies that make no sense for someone who is not a native speaker and who has only a rudimentary grasp of the English: Why is Leicester pronounced "Lester" instead of "Lei-cester" ?  If that is the intent, why not simply writing "Lester" ?Most English proverbs mean nothing if you literally try to decipher them: "the guy has a short fuse" (Huh ?  People in English countries are born with bodies that have fuses ?), "the guy has a chip on his shoulder"  (Huh ?  Why is he walking around with a chip, what kind of chip ?), "the guy is as thick as two short planks" (how thick are those planks, and why are they short, and why is the body size of someone measured to a plank instead of a measure tape ?); "the one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind" (huh ?  Which member of what royal family has only one eye, and what kind of genetic birth defect do those people have ?  Is it a dominant gen that affects both men and women ?)

And we can go on and on and on. In many cases English also makes no sense, although someone who is a native speaker of English or someone who has properly memorized those things as part of him studying the language has few or no problems with it. It's the same in Japanese. Japanese is very well structured with lots of rules, but if you study and master all of them then modern Japanese as written today is not so difficult.

That is as much as I can say. In brief, the meaning of 'komi' needs to be considered in combination of the word it is used with, which may modify its basic meaning. This applies for nearly all Japanese words.

For example, the binomen (combination of two kanji):

Komi-au 込み合う means to be packed or jammed (note that

Thank you for the swift reply, if I understand you correctly them the Komi in Tsuri-Komi-Goshi is to indicate the difference in the type of "Tsuri" action?

classicschmosby wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:

classicschmosby wrote:The term "Komi" is used in a variety of throws and actions but with seemingly different meanings and I was wondering if any more experienced members could enlighten me on the meaning or usage or the term.

'-komi' 込 used as a suffix means "to be inclusive of". In combination with other nouns or verbs the two words may be translated by a single word that conveys the meaning of the combination. If 'komi' is not used as a suffix but as the first term of the compound word or binomen the meaning may be more nuanced, and the two words again may be translated by a single word.

Many kanji in Japanese or hanzi in Chinese get a somewhat different meaning when they are used in combination. That is also logical since a combination of words makes something much more defined and specific. If there is a group of people there and I call out your first name, there may well be 5 people sticking up their hands. If the group is large, let's say 200 people, it may even be so that if I call out your surname that there are still 2 people who stick up their hand, unless you have a rare surname. However, if I would call out the combination of the two, i.e. your first name and surnamen, my question becomes very well defined and it is unlikely that anyone but you will meet that criterion.

Especially in Chinese where many words are the same, except for some tone, there is a lot of chance for confusion. If you strip the word of its tone and would ask someone, what does the word 'shi' mean it is virtually impossible to answer.

So, how does one know in Chinese what it is you mean ?  Partly by the context of a sentence. Let's assume the virtual word 'X'. If I then say to you: "I would like X", you have no clue what 'X' is. It could mean bear, water, food, a girl, or a verb like "wanting to hit someone in the face", you have no idea. However, if I use the same word in a very contextually defining sentence, its meaning automatically becomes more specific. For example: "It's cold outside, so I think I need to put a X on my head if I am going out". Suddenly, the words most likely possibilities become very limited and X almost needs to imply "a hat". For the sake of clarity, let's avoid situations where wordplays and absurd humor are being used.

Still, there is an issue since although it is possible for many sentences to reword them so they are very specific, it is a fact there are situations that the context cannot be made too specific because of a variety of reasons, sometimes because the definite word is not known. For example: "My car has engine trouble and I took it to the garage, and the mechanic told me that the problem is likely a broken X". This sentence is very specific. It defines the car, it defines, what happened to it, it defines that something is broken, it defines what you did, and still it is impossible to guess with reasonable likelihood what X entails. There are dozens of things that X might be. Presumably by giving a very detailed description of everything that preceded with your car it might be possible for someone with reasonable mechanical knowledge to narrow down his guess of what X precisely is, but this would make conversations very troublesome as we would need to many sentences just to make sure that a single word is understood correctly. And also, since your audience might exist of people who have zero understanding of cars and their engines, it is not certain that even with relatively extensive explanations they would know what it is you are talking about.

So, by combining two words, just like in your first name and last name, the meaning of X becomes far more specified, making it possible to convey its meaning relatively unambiguously even in relatively simple and short sentences.

An additional reason is that it allows the creation of extra words, when something new was invented. An oddity is that although most combinations of words in Chinese have brought their original meaning with in Japanese, it is not always like that, and there are binomen that exist in either language that do not exist or mean something different in the other language.

The verb komi iru 込み入る means "to push in" (in most cases), but its past tense komi itta 込み入った usually means "to be complicated". While this may sound somewhat confusing to you, every language is confusing for someone who is not fluent in the language. English is full of inconsistencies that make no sense for someone who is not a native speaker and who has only a rudimentary grasp of the English: Why is Leicester pronounced "Lester" instead of "Lei-cester" ?  If that is the intent, why not simply writing "Lester" ?Most English proverbs mean nothing if you literally try to decipher them: "the guy has a short fuse" (Huh ?  People in English countries are born with bodies that have fuses ?), "the guy has a chip on his shoulder"  (Huh ?  Why is he walking around with a chip, what kind of chip ?), "the guy is as thick as two short planks" (how thick are those planks, and why are they short, and why is the body size of someone measured to a plank instead of a measure tape ?); "the one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind" (huh ?  Which member of what royal family has only one eye, and what kind of genetic birth defect do those people have ?  Is it a dominant gen that affects both men and women ?)

And we can go on and on and on. In many cases English also makes no sense, although someone who is a native speaker of English or someone who has properly memorized those things as part of him studying the language has few or no problems with it. It's the same in Japanese. Japanese is very well structured with lots of rules, but if you study and master all of them then modern Japanese as written today is not so difficult.

That is as much as I can say. In brief, the meaning of 'komi' needs to be considered in combination of the word it is used with, which may modify its basic meaning. This applies for nearly all Japanese words.

For example, the binomen (combination of two kanji):

Komi-au 込み合う means to be packed or jammed (note that

Thank you for the swift reply, if I understand you correctly them the Komi in Tsuri-Komi-Goshi is to indicate the difference in the type of "Tsuri" action?

The verb tsuru 釣る means to pull, although it also means to atract, to lure in, to entice ...
When tsuru is combined with '-komi', in the context in which we use it implies that the pulling is accompanied with some entering kind of activity. In a broader sense in jûdô context the whole term is often explained as "pulling and lifting" although literally and lexicologically that is not implied in the words. The common translation is "lifting and pulling hip throw". As in many cases this translation is the consequence of people who did not speak and certainly were not scholars in Japanese, having to tie a meaning to what they were seeing and which the Japanese referred to as "tsuri-komi-goshi". However, strictly speaking "tsuri-komi-goshi" does not mean "lifting and pulling hip throw", just like de-ashi-barai does not at all mean sweeping the advancing foot (otherwise you could never perform de-ashi-barai when uke would be walking backwards). Tsuri-komi-goshi really means that a lifting and and entering hip throw is performed.

Incidentally, the same kanji 釣り, thus 'tsuri' also means Internet trolling ...

There are a lot of homynyms in Japanese, which I don't speak except for judo and kendo technical stuff. When I ask a native speaker what a word means they always ask me what the specific kanji is before they can answer. The one used in all the throws is 込. The rough translation of komi (込) is "included". So tsurikomi is "with a lift", or "lifting", makikomi is winding and so forth. I don't think the meaning of those combinations differs from throw to throw.