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空手道 karatedō Karate-Do

空手道 (karatedō) is karate under the name that gave it 道, way: this study follows who put the 道 on the name, and when.

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Japanese Scroll of Karate-Do (karatedō) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Karate-Do空手道karatedō

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

空手道 (karatedō) is today another name for karate, the name under which the art took 道, way, the suffix of 柔道 and 剣道, and two encyclopedias tell that as one act, Funakoshi Gichin 船越義珍's renaming of 1935. The sources read show it in steps, each from below: the Keiō University karate club dated its declaration of 空手道 to 20 October 1929, though the university's guide of that December still named a 唐手研究會 for 唐手術; in Okinawa, Miyagi Chōjun wrote 唐手道 in 1934 and said in 1936 that the island's branch of the Butokukai still called the art so, keeping the 唐; and the Dai Nippon Butokukai headed its karate rank 空手術 in 1937 and wrote 空手道 by 1943, when a university's book of student training wrote 道 on all eight sections it counted as 武道, while the police manual of 1948 went back to 空手術. In English, where karate-do is in print from 1957 in the Internet Archive's full text, most of the books read here give the 道 to Funakoshi; one, of 1985, gives the new name to a conference of Okinawan masters and says only that some of them call the art karate-do; two, of 1995 and 1998, give the substitution of the characters in 1929 to the Keiō club.

Overview

The sense. A standard word, the name of a modern martial art. デジタル大辞泉 enters からて‐どう〔‐ダウ〕【空手道】 and sends the reader on, ⇒ からて（空手） 2, and ニッポニカ does the same, 空手道 → 空手 [1]. The sense it sends to is the art: 《沖縄に伝来した中国明代の拳法が、沖縄の古武道と合体して発達した武術。徒手空拳で身を守り、相手を制する格闘術で、突き・蹴り・受けを基本とする。空手道。》, a martial art that grew from the boxing of Ming China, brought to Okinawa, joined with Okinawa's old martial arts; a fighting art of defending oneself and mastering an opponent with bare hands, on the basis of the strike, the kick and the block; 空手道 [2]. So the dictionary gives 空手道 and 空手 as one art under two names, and gives 空手道 no sense of its own. JMdict gives the way of karate; karate [3]. The encyclopedias date the name under 空手: 世界大百科 《35年船越義珍により、旧来の唐手を空手道と改称、39年には大日本武徳会によって正式に認知されて、日本武道として確立された》, in 1935 Funakoshi Gichin renamed the old 唐手 空手道, and in 1939 it was formally recognized by the Dai Nippon Butokukai and established as a Japanese martial way, and マイペディア the same; ニッポニカ puts the change of 唐 to 空 in the early Shōwa years, by Funakoshi and Keiō University, and the art's admission to the Butokukai in 1933 [2]. The reference works disagree on the agent and on the Butokukai's year.

The words. 空手道 is read からてどう. 空手, empty hand, is the art's name, written 唐手, Tang hand, until the change whose story is the history of 空手 [4]. 道 is a way: a road, and by extension the course of an art or a teaching, the character that 柔道 and 剣道 carry and that the archers took for 弓道 [5][6]. The names the art carried before and beside 空手道, in the sources read, are 唐手, 唐手術, 空手, 空手術, 拳法 and 唐手道; 術 is a technique or art. The question this history follows is not what the characters mean, which is plain, but who put 道 on the art's name, when, and why.

The text in English. The Meiji Japanese-English dictionaries have karate only as the old word for empty-handed [4]. JMdict keeps the borrowed word, the way of karate, before karate [3]. When English took karate-do, and whom it credited, is the subject of the English section below.

The historical record

1922 and 1925, Funakoshi in Tokyo. The Okinawan teacher Funakoshi Gichin, who wrote his name 富名腰 in his early books, brought the art to Tokyo in 1922, and his books of 1922 and 1925 are titled 『琉球拳法唐手』 and 『錬胆護身唐手術』 [7][4]. The change of 唐 to 空 that followed is told in the history of 空手 [4].

1929, the Keiō club's own date. The karate club of Keiō University, in a book it published in February 1936 for its tenth anniversary, 『空手道集成』, gives the date and the act: at its fifth-anniversary autumn meet on 20 October 1929 it declared, ahead of others, that 唐手術 would be called 空手道 [8]. The book claims the change as the club's own initiative, and gives its reason as the passage, for karate, from 武術, martial technique, to 武道, martial way; one section of the same book dates the step a year later, to 昭和五年 (1930), and calls it external, which the windows read cannot explain [8]. The book is known here from the full-text search's snippets only. Funakoshi's memoir of 1956 places the decision at Keiō too: in its English of 1975, It came about when Keio University formed a karate research group, and I was able then to suggest that the art be renamed Dai Nippon Kempo Karate-do ("Great Japan Fist-Method Empty-Hands Way") [9]; in the Japanese, as the snippets show it, he decided it together with his fellow students [10]. Kadekaru Tōru 嘉手苅徹, in 2011: 本土では、1929(昭和4)年頃から「唐手」は「空手道」へと変遷していく, on the mainland, from about 1929, 唐手 changes into 空手道 [11].

December 1929, the university's guide. Keiō's own 『慶応義塾総覧』, its colophon dated 昭和四年十二月二十五日發行, issued 25 December 1929, lists among the clubs: 《△慶應義塾唐手研究會　大正十三年創立、琉球古來の拳法唐手術の研究を目的とす、會長　粕谷眞洋》, the Keiō 唐手 Research Society, founded 1924, for the study of 唐手術, the boxing of Ryūkyū from of old; president, Kasuya Shin'yō [12]. Its register of degrees runs to 2 November 1929 [12]. So the university's guide, issued two months after the club's date, names the club with 唐 and its art with 術. A club list can be carried forward from an earlier compilation, and this is a tension with the club's date, not a refutation of it. Kasuya is the professor of German whom Funakoshi names as having come to his hall with other members of the Keiō faculty and students who wanted to learn [9]. A witness outside Keiō confirms the meet itself. The karate club of the First Higher School in Tokyo set down rules in force from 1 April 1929, whose third article reads 《本會ハ唐手術ニヨリ一般寮生ノ體力ヲ增進シ》, this society shall by 唐手術 increase the strength of the dormitory students, and its chronicle, printed with the rules on the facing page of the school's history of 1930, records 《十月二十日慶應唐手研究會五周年紀念大會に臨み》, on 20 October we attended the fifth-anniversary meet of the Keiō 唐手 Research Society [13]. The entry gives no year; it stands in the chronicle of the year whose rules took effect on 1 April 1929, before the school club's own first autumn meet on 3 November, so it is the meet of 1929. The chronicle calls the Keiō club by its old name and says nothing of a declaration.

1930, the club's magazine. Kadekaru, in his thesis of 2017, writes that 空手の「空」に対して、哲学的な意味を持たせて論じ、日本の武道としての位置づけを明確にするため「道」の概念を付与して「空手道」の呼称が唱えられてもいった, the 空 of 空手 was argued with a philosophical meaning, and to make its place as a Japanese 武道 clear the concept of 道 was added and the name 空手道 put forward, and cites for it an article on 空 in the first number of 『こぶし』, published in 1930 by the 慶應義塾空手研究會, the Keiō 空手 Research Society [7]. By 1930, on his citation, the Keiō group printed its name with 空.

1934, 唐手道 in Okinawa. Miyagi Chōjun 宮城長順, the Okinawan teacher, wrote an outline of the art whose manuscript, as Kadekaru describes it, has on its flyleaf 「昭和九年参月弐拾参日　唐手道概説　宮城長順稿」, 23 March 1934, an outline of 唐手道, draft by Miyagi Chōjun; a second version, given to an Osaka club for a lecture of 28 January 1936, is signed 大日本武徳会沖縄県支部常議員　宮城長順稿, by Miyagi Chōjun, councillor of the Okinawa prefectural branch of the Dai Nippon Butokukai, and was printed that year [7]. In Miyagi's outline 唐手 carries the 道 while the 唐 stands.

1934, the Keiō rules in print. In 『空手研究』, a magazine-book of December 1934, the rules of the Keiō club, now the karate section of the university's athletic association, set as its purpose the study of 空手道, for training the body, the nerve and self-defense [14]. In the National Diet Library's full-text search the earliest printed 空手道 for the art is of 1934, in these rules and in an advertisement for the same magazine in a book of Mabuni Kenwa 摩文仁賢和's of that year, which announces the rise of 空手道; every earlier-dated hit read is a misreading of other characters, or, in one serial run catalogued 1924–1968, a postwar page; both books are known from the search's snippets [14][15].

1935, Funakoshi's 『空手道教範』. The national library's list of accessions for 1935 enters 《空手道敎範　富名腰義珍著　大倉廣文堂》, Karatedō kyōhan, by Funakoshi Gichin, Ōkura Kōbundō [16]. In the book, as Kadekaru quotes it, Funakoshi explains the change of character, 今後は『唐』字を廃して『空』字に改める事にした, from now on I have decided to drop the character 唐 and change it to 空, and in the next chapter, 術より道へ, from 術 to 道, says that 心と技と内外兼ね備って始めて完全なる『空手道』と言える, only when mind and technique, inner and outer, are both present can it be called a complete 空手道 [7]. The English of 2012, whose preface calls it an exact reproduction of the complete original publication and whose title page gives the original as presented to the Emperor on 19 July 1935, titles the chapter From Technique Toward the Way: This inward quality of mind and outward quality of technique must be present at the same time to be faultlessly called "The Way of Kara-te.", and Techniques are for people, not people for techniques. [17]. Of the three books of his that Kadekaru sets side by side, of 1922, 1925 and 1935, it is the first with the new name in its title, and the chapter gave the 道 its content [7]. It was not the first book so titled to be announced: two books of 1934 carry an advertisement, with a price, for a 空手道入門, an introduction to 空手道, edited by Nakasone Genwa, known from the full-text search's snippets. That book, by Mabuni and Nakasone, came out in October 1935, as the catalogue records it, with the second title 空手独習の手引, a guide to learning karate by oneself, and in an edition of March 1938 with the second title 空手術教範 [15].

1936, the Keiō club claims the name; the Okinawan round table. The club's book of February 1936 says that the old name 唐手術 had been given out of the Okinawans' fervor for 唐, that the club changed it, ahead of others, to 空手道, and that the renaming was the club's own epoch-making initiative; in the same book the old names of the forms, the kata, are 支那臭滿々, reeking of China, and the 空手道 the club was building had to give them names to fit [8]. On 25 October the newspaper 琉球新報 held a round table of the island's teachers at the 昭和会館, which Kadekaru reprints from the paper's series. The paper's report of 26 October, headed 「名称を"空手"に統一し　振興会を結成!」, name unified as 空手; a promotion society formed, calls the eight masters present 唐手道の大家, masters of 唐手道 [7]. In the second installment, of 28 October, Shimabukuro, the head of the library, asks 空手を最近空手道といっているが、之は柔道、剣道のように精神が主となって道の字をつけたのですか, lately karate is called 空手道: is that because, as with 柔道 and 剣道, the spirit is the chief thing and the character 道 was added?, and Nakasone Genwa 仲宗根源和 answers それは精神修養の意味から使っているようです, it seems to be used in the sense of cultivating the spirit. Miyagi: 私は空手というよりは空手道という方がよいと思う。これに就いては以前に武徳会支部でも委員間に問題となったことがある。その後はこの問題は保留されているが、支部では「唐手道」と称している, I think 空手道 is better than 空手. This was once an issue among the committee of the Butokukai branch too; it has been held over since, and the branch calls it 唐手道 [7]. A speaker recorded as Mr. Hanashiro, 花城氏, opened the installment: 昔は空手と云わず唐手（トウデ）又は単に手（テー）といった, in the old days it was not called 空手 but 唐手, tōde, or simply 手, tē; later in it he said 私の古い帳面にはみな空手と書いてある, my old notebooks all write 空手 [7]. In the third, of 30 October, a member of the branch: 空手は昭和８年に武徳会支部から武道として承認されていますが、その際宮城先生は唐手と書かれたようです, karate was approved as a 武道 by the Butokukai branch in 1933, and on that occasion Mr. Miyagi seems to have written 唐手 [7].

1937, the Butokukai's register. The Dai Nippon Butokukai's 『武道範士教士錬士名鑑』 of 1937, its register of ranked teachers, heads one section 《空手術錬士》, 錬士 in 空手術, over one entry, a teacher in Tokyo made 錬士 in May 1936 [18]. In the same register the minor arts keep 術, 棒術, 捕縄術, 鎖鎌術, 鐵扇術, while the sword is 剣道 [18]. Eight years after the Keiō declaration, the national body named the art 空手術.

1938, 唐手道 in an Okinawan who's who. 『現代沖縄県人名鑑』 of 1938 writes of Miyagi, 《昭和九年布哇遠征第二世に唐手道を普及す》, in 1934 he went to Hawaii and spread 唐手道 among the second generation, and of Funakoshi, 《帝都に於いて廿年餘唐手道の普及に精進しつゝある富名腰義珍氏》, Funakoshi Gichin, who for more than twenty years has labored in the capital to spread 唐手道, though by then his own book was titled 空手道; the same entry names Keiō and the First Higher School among the schools where he founded a karate club and taught it [19].

1938, 空手道 and 空手術 side by side. Nakasone's 『空手道大観』 of 1938 prints twenty articles by Funakoshi on 空手道, the first that it begins and ends with courtesy, and calls 空手道 a Japanese martial way beside the sword and judo [20]; the book is known from the full-text search's snippets. Its advertisement in the Kōdōkan's journal 『柔道』 quotes Kanō Jigorō 嘉納治五郎: 『空手術は攻防ともに自在なり。広く全国に宣伝普及せらるべし』, 空手術 is free in attack and defense alike; it should be spread across the whole country [7]. The words the advertisement gives the founder of 柔道 call karate 術, in praise of a book titled 道. The same year a new edition of Mabuni and Nakasone's 『空手道入門』 took a new second title, 空手術教範, a teaching manual of 空手術 [15].

1942 and 1943, the Butokukai and 道 for every art. Miyagi wrote in 1942, as Kadekaru quotes him, that the art was now 大日本武徳会において認められ、堂々、日本武道の班に列した, recognized by the Dai Nippon Butokukai and ranked, with dignity, among the Japanese martial ways, and wrote: いつの間にか唐手が空手になった, at some point 唐手 became 空手 [7]. In 1943 the Butokukai's journal 『武徳』 lists ranks of 空手道 beside those of 合氣道, 薙刀道 and 居合道, as the full-text search's snippets show [21]. The same year, Waseda University's book of student training, 『学徒錬成』, among the thirty-six clubs it counts for 昭和十七年度, lists its martial ones as 《劍道、柔道、弓道、角道、騎道、體技道、空手道、銃劍道の八部》, eight sections: 剣道, 柔道, 弓道, 角道, 騎道, 體技道, 空手道 and 銃剣道, the eight it counted as 武道, 角道 and 騎道 being, as I read them, sumo and riding [22]. By then 道 stood on all eight sections the book counted as 武道, and 空手道 was one instance of a general form.

1948, 空手術 again. After the war, the police manual of arrest 『逮捕術教範』 of 1948 sets out that its method draws on 《柔術、警棒術、空手術、拳闘その他》, jūjutsu, the baton, 空手術, boxing and the rest [23].

What is not a source. 柔道 and 剣道, which the speakers of 1936 named as the model, are not the source of the karate name: 柔道 is Kanō's name of 1882, and the Butokukai renamed its arts 剣道, 柔道 and 弓道 in 1919 [6][5]. The Buddhist sense of 空 belongs to the change of 唐 to 空, not to the 道 [4].

The word in English

1955 to 1958, from the French. A French trade catalogue lists in 1955 a book on the pratique du Karate-do [24]. In English, the earliest karate-do in the Internet Archive's full text is of November 1957. The New Canadian of Toronto, 23 November 1957, announces a demonstration in Toronto of KARATE-do and AIKI-do; the Archive's text of the issue reads tong the first. demonstration, its first word garbled [25]. The front matter of Oyama Masutatsu's What Is Karate?, in the revised edition the Archive dates 1959, says that Nippon Karate-do is being introduced to foreign countries, near a date of 15 November 1957 that only the order of the Archive's text attaches to it [26]. In 1958 E. J. Harrison published Japanese Karate-Do with Foulsham [27], and Robert W. Smith's A Complete Guide to Judo reprinted Funakoshi's Karate-Do from the Judo Revue [28]. These are known from the full-text search's windows.

1966, Nakayama, Dynamic Karate. Funakoshi's pupil Nakayama Masatoshi: My teacher, Funakoshi Gichin, changed the concept of karate-jitsu (literally, "Chinese hand techniques") to karate-do (literally, "empty-hand ways") in 1935 [29]. The year is the book's.

1966, the Way of the Empty Hand. The Saturday Evening Post of 21 May 1966: Japanese words Kara-Te-Do signify the "Way of the Empty Hand." [30]. It is the earliest use of the phrase in the Internet Archive's full text whose date is its own; one item the Archive dates 1964 is a volume of 2004.

1977, Nakayama, Best Karate. Tote came to be known as karate-jutsu, and then, from around 1929, Gichin Funakoshi took the revolutionary step of strongly advocating that the name be changed to Karate-do, and The name was not changed easily. Week after week, articles by Okinawan martial arts experts appeared in the Okinawa Times demanding to know why … With the publication of Karate-do Kyohan (by Master Funakoshi) in 1935, Karate-do became firmly established [31]. The year 1929 is the one the Keiō club's book gives, though Nakayama does not say so; he gives the act to Funakoshi alone.

1985, Higaonna Morio. In 1933, the Okinawan art of karate was recognized as a Japanese martial art by the Japanese Martial Arts Committee known as the "Butoku Kai.", and In 1933, the art of Miyagi Sensei was formally registered as "Goju Ryu" at the Butoku-kai, and of the name: in 1935, the masters of the various styles of Okinawan karate conferred to decide a new name for their art … Some masters call their art "karate-do" which means "the way of karate." [32]. The approval of 1933 that the round table of 1936 recalled was the Okinawa branch's, and the speaker said Miyagi seems to have written 唐手 [7]; the round table on the name that Kadekaru reprints met on 25 October 1936 [7].

1995, Stevens; McCarthy, first published that year. John Stevens: In 1935 Funakoshi published a new book. The title itself announced significant changes: Karate-Do Kyohan, "The Way of Karate: Master Text." Karate was no longer a mere art, it was a "Way", and of the character: As far back as 1905 a karate man named Chomo Hanashiro (1869-1945) had suggested the change, and the Keio University Karate Club actually made the substitution in 1929. Funakoshi's declaration helped make the change permanent. [33]. Patrick McCarthy, in the revised edition of 2008 of a book which that edition says Tuttle first produced in 1995: While the new term "karate-do," using the two new ideograms (kara and do), was not officially recognized in Okinawa until 1936, it was ratified by the Dai Nippon Butokukai in December 1933, without a source [34]. The Butokukai's own register of 1937 heads the rank 空手術 [18], so the do half of the sentence does not hold for 1933.

1998, Hurst. G. Cameron Hurst III, who like Stevens gives the club the characters' first use in 1929: in 1929 the Keio University karate club and then other karate clubs throughout Japan began to use the characters meaning "empty hand", citing a Japanese history by Fujiwara Ryōzō of 1982 [35].

2003, The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate. Takagi Jōtarō's afterword to the English edition, read as printed in the US edition of 2012, on Funakoshi's life: Around 1929, on completion of his training, Master Funakoshi bestowed a new name on the discipline … Instead of karate-jutsu, "Chinese-hand technique," the art became known as karate-do, or "the Way of the Empty Hand." [36]. The training is his Zen practice at Engaku-ji, which the same paragraph names; the club is not named.

2026, the English Wikipedia. The article Karate says that the name 唐手道 was already used by the karate club of Tokyo Imperial University … in 1929 and that Funakoshi adopted 空手道 in the same way, and that In 1933, karate was officially recognized as a Japanese martial art by the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai, but initially belonged to the jujutsu division, the second without a source [37].

Today. JMdict gives the way of karate; karate [3], and the design is sold as Karate-Do, the form English has used since 1957. This history's gloss, karate, the unarmed martial art, gives what the dictionary says the word names; the way of karate and the way of the empty hand are what its characters say, and true to what the Keiō club and Funakoshi meant by the 道 [8][7].

A reading

The name has been told as one man's act in one year: Funakoshi, 1935, the year of his book. The sources read tell it as a sequence of acts, each from below. A student club in Tokyo declared 空手道 at its own meet and dated it 20 October 1929; its university's guide had not caught up by December, and another school's club, which had written 唐手術 in its rules that April, called the Keiō club 唐手 in recording the meet [8][12][13]. In Okinawa Miyagi wrote 唐手道 in 1934, and in 1936 he said the island's branch of the Butokukai still called the art 唐手道, though at the round table that year a speaker recorded as Hanashiro said his old notebooks all wrote 空手 [7][19]. The national body headed the rank 空手術 in 1937 and wrote 空手道 by 1943, when a university's book of student training wrote 道 on all eight sections it counted as 武道 [18][21][22]. I read 空手道 as a name the practitioners chose, the Keiō club first among those the sources read can date, on its own book's dating (the English Wikipedia gives 唐手道 to the Tokyo Imperial University club in the same year [37]), and Funakoshi's book as the act that fixed it, not the act that made it.

What 道 meant to them is said in their own words. To the Keiō club it was the passage from martial technique to martial way [8]. To Funakoshi it was mind and technique together, inner and outer, and techniques for people, not people for techniques [7][17]. To the round table of 1936 it was what 柔道 and 剣道 had done, putting the spirit first [7]. Kanō, whose 柔道 was the model, is quoted calling it 空手術 in 1938, and the police manual of 1948 went back to it [7][23]: the 道 was a claim about what the art is for, and not everyone granted it. English took the word with the claim and, in most of the books read here, gave the 道 to one man.

Notes

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Karate-Do (karatedō) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
空手道VB4CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Karate-Do (karatedō) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
空手道VC4BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Karate-Do (karatedō) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (jiun)
空手道VD4BJiun
Japanese Scroll of Karate-Do (karatedō) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
空手道VS4CSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「空手道」, デジタル大辞泉, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/空手道-2131845
  2. 「空手」, デジタル大辞泉, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ, 小山正辰), 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, 百科事典マイペディア, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/空手-47195
  3. 空手道, JMdict, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/word/空手道
  4. 典 Ten, "空手 · karate · empty hand", Philology, Takase Studios, 2026. https://takase.com/library/philology/karate
  5. 典 Ten, "弓道 · kyūdō · Japanese archery, the martial art of the bow", Philology, Takase Studios, 2026. https://takase.com/library/philology/kyudo
  6. 典 Ten, "柔道 · jūdō", Philology, Takase Studios, 2026. https://takase.com/library/philology/judo
  7. 嘉手苅徹『沖縄空手の創造と展開―呼称の変遷を手がかりとして―』, doctoral dissertation, 早稲田大学, 2017, pp. 14, 132, 133, 143, 162, 166–167, 170, 175–178 and 181–182. https://waseda.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/40324/files/Honbun-7673.pdf
  8. 慶応義塾体育会空手部 編『空手道集成』, 1936, National Diet Library pid 1144879, served to readers in Japan only; known from the full-text search's snippets. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1144879
  9. Gichin Funakoshi, Karate-Dō: My Way of Life, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1975, "Chinese Hand to Empty Hand" (chapter "No Weapons") and "Public Interest" (chapter "Recognition").
  10. 船越義珍『空手道一路』, 産業経済新聞社, 1956, National Diet Library pid 2481607, served on the library's premises only; known from the full-text search's snippets. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2481607
  11. 嘉手苅徹「空手の名称の変遷 ―②「唐手(からて)」から「空手道」への変容―」, 『武道学研究』 44 Supplement, 2011, p. S22. https://doi.org/10.11214/budo.44.s_22
  12. 『慶応義塾総覧』, 慶應義塾, 昭和4 (1929), p. 154, scan 91; the register of degrees, p. 140, scan 84; the colophon, scan 231. National Diet Library pid 1464337. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1464337/1/91
  13. 『向陵誌』, 第一高等学校寄宿寮 編, 昭和5 (1930), pp. 1978–1979, scan 1075. National Diet Library pid 1466015. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1466015/1/1075
  14. 『空手研究』 第1輯, 空手研究社 編, 興武館, 1934, National Diet Library pid 1027727, served to readers in Japan only; known from the full-text search's snippets. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1027727
  15. 摩文仁賢和『功防自在空手拳法十八の研究』, 1934 (the title as the library catalogues it), National Diet Library pid 1915276, and 『海の生命線熱帯の日本』, 昭和9 (1934), pid 1258485, both served to readers in Japan only; their advertisements known from the full-text search's snippets. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1915276 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1258485. The book advertised: 摩文仁賢和, 仲宗根源和『空手道入門 : 別名・空手独習の手引』, 空手研究社興武館, 1935.10, National Diet Library Search. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000001-I47111104048372 · its edition of 1938, 摩文仁賢和, 仲宗根源和 共著『空手道入門 : 別名・空手術教範』, 京文社書店, Tokyo, 1938.3, CiNii Books BA43883768. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1971993809776267844
  16. 『帝国図書館報』 第28冊 第5号, 帝国図書館, 1935, scan 18. National Diet Library pid 1939610. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1939610/1/18
  17. Gichin Funakoshi, Karate Do Kyohan: Master Text for the Way of the Empty-Hand, translated by Harumi Suzuki-Johnston, Neptune Publications, second edition, 2012 (first edition 2005), which its preface calls an exact reproduction of the complete original publication and whose title page reads Presented to the Emperor On July 19, 1935, chapter 2, "From Technique Toward the Way".
  18. 大日本武徳会 編『武道範士教士錬士名鑑』, 昭和12 (1937), pp. 295–296, scans 159–160. National Diet Library pid 1055514. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1055514/1/160
  19. 『現代沖縄県人名鑑』, 昭和13 (1938), scans 15 and 26. National Diet Library pid 1219065. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1219065/1/15
  20. 仲宗根源和 編『空手道大観』, 東京図書, 1938, National Diet Library pid 1104139, served to readers in Japan only; known from the full-text search's snippets. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1104139
  21. 『武徳』, 大日本武徳会, September and November 1943, National Diet Library pids 4426251 and 4426253, served to readers in Japan only; known from the full-text search's snippets. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/4426251
  22. 早稲田大学 編『学徒錬成』, 早稲田大学出版部, 1943, p. 297, scan 166. National Diet Library pid 1450081. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1450081/1/166
  23. 常山堂編輯部 編『逮捕術教範』, 京都プレース社, 1948, scan 4. National Diet Library pid 1711696. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1711696/1/4
  24. Catalogue général de la librairie française, 1946–1956, s.v. Lasserre (Robert), read in the Internet Archive's full-text search windows. Internet Archive catalogue-general-librairie-fr_1946-1956_3_a-z. https://archive.org/details/catalogue-general-librairie-fr_1946-1956_3_a-z
  25. The New Canadian, Toronto, vol. 20, no. 91, 23 November 1957, read in the Internet Archive's text of the issue. Internet Archive per_the-new-canadian_1957-11-23_20_91. https://archive.org/details/per_the-new-canadian_1957-11-23_20_91
  26. Masutatsu Oyama, What Is Karate?, revised edition, the front matter, read in the Internet Archive's text of the book (the item dated 1959). Internet Archive what-is-karate. https://archive.org/details/what-is-karate
  27. The Publishers' Circular and Booksellers' Record, vol. 172, 22 February 1958, read in the Internet Archive's full-text search windows. Internet Archive british-books_1958-02-22_172_4782. https://archive.org/details/british-books_1958-02-22_172_4782
  28. Robert W. Smith, ed., A Complete Guide to Judo: Its Story and Practice, Tuttle, Rutland, Vermont, 1958, read in the Internet Archive's full-text search windows. Internet Archive completeguidetoj0000smit. https://archive.org/details/completeguidetoj0000smit
  29. Masatoshi Nakayama, Dynamic Karate: Instruction by the Master, translated by Herman Kauz, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1966, the preface.
  30. The Saturday Evening Post, vol. 239, no. 11, 21 May 1966, read in the Internet Archive's full-text search windows. Internet Archive sim_saturday-evening-post_1966-05-21_239_11. https://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-evening-post_1966-05-21_239_11
  31. Masatoshi Nakayama, Best Karate, vol. 1, Comprehensive, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1977, the chapter "Karate-do", pp. 130–131.
  32. Morio Higaonna, Traditional Karate-do: Okinawa Goju Ryu, vol. 1, Fundamental Techniques, Sugawara Martial Arts Institute, Machida, Tokyo, 1985; read in the eighth printing, 1997; the history of Gōjū-ryū.
  33. John Stevens, Three Budo Masters: Jigoro Kano, Gichin Funakoshi, Morihei Ueshiba, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1995, the chapter on Funakoshi.
  34. Patrick McCarthy, Bubishi: The Classic Manual of Combat, revised edition, Tuttle, North Clarendon, Vermont, 2008 (first produced by Tuttle in 1995 as Bible of Karate, as the 2008 edition says), "The Kara of Karate-do".
  35. G. Cameron Hurst III, Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1998, p. 203, note 18.
  36. Gichin Funakoshi, The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate: The Spiritual Legacy of the Master, translated by John Teramoto, with an afterword by Jotaro Takagi translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 2003; read in the first US edition, Kodansha USA, New York, 2012, the afterword, pp. 116–117 (the copyright page of 2012 dates the book 2003, 2012, and the translation excluding the afterword).
  37. "Karate", English Wikipedia, revision of 11 October 2026, §§ Etymology and History. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1379769762
  38. 「空手道」, Japanese Wikipedia, revision of 16 October 2026. https://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=111407869

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 空手道 (karatedō)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/karatedo.