Friday, September 16, 2022

meaningless trivia (for some)

The name Sun Tzu is Son Ja (孫子, 손자) in Korean. His The Art of War is Son Ja Byeong Beop (孫子兵法, 손자병법, or Sun Tzu's Art of War). The third character, 兵/병/byeong, can mean "soldier," "weapon," or "war." The fourth character, 法/법/beop, means "law," but in this context, it might be thought of more as "way," "principle," or "method." I'm guessing that "art" is a possible translation if we go back to the Greek notion of technē, which can mean "art" or "technique," although frankly, the Greek technē has more in common with the Chinese term 術/술/sul, which can also mean "art" or "technique" (as in 武術/무술/musul, "martial arts/techniques"; or 美術/미술/misul, "[fine] art"). For what it's worth, musul would be pronounced bujitsu in Japanese.



No comments: