Re: basho or tournament

[jz8d-smmn@asahi-net.or.jp (Doreen Simmons)]

At 18:35 98.10.6 +1000, Anne Doggett wrote:
 
>I asked my Japanese friend who knows alot about Sumo about this, but she
>told me that there have been no bashos outside Japan. According to her,
>basho is the official term for the 6 official yearly contests held in
>Japan. Any other contest can be described by the English word tournament.
 
Anne,

Your friend is slightly wrong. The correct term for the six official
tournaments is 'hon-basho' - real basho. Some of the jungyo (regional tour)
stops, when sumo is on for more than ta single day, for instance 3 to 5
days,  are called 'basho'.

The foreign tours are normally of two kinds: koen, officially-sponsored
tour (government level), and jungyo, exactly the same term as is used for
inside Japan; this is a commercial enterprise, basically.

Other events in Japan are called a variety of things, and one of them is
the katakana version of the English word 'tournament' - to-na-mento. Some
others are called taikai, which just means 'big meeting'.


Doreen in sumoland

  A theory is something that clever people think up much later 
                                    to explain something that already works