I see some people who spell Wing Chun "_ing _un," here and on other sites (namely Bullshido). What is up with this?
I'll point out that I don't know for a fact, but this is my guess. There are characters in the Chinese alphabet which don't translate well, or at all, there are just some sounds which do not exist in our language, and vice versa. This is why many Chinese people have problems with 'r' and 'l', its just not a sound they have experience making. Best guess is that the 'w' and 'ch' are just the closest translations they could find, and some people prefer to just put _ instead of an approximation.
There are two common spellings of WC -Wing Chun -Ving Tsun I'm sure there are probably other combos or ways of spelling it. At the school I trained with in NYC it was Wing Chun Kuen. You also find this to be the case with JJ -Jiu-Jitsu -JuJutsu And other variations. Why do you ask?
That's the unified spelling for all the branches (Wing Tsun, Tzun, Tchun, Chun, Ving Tsun etc). It can also be used to point out the silliness of lineage wars. (_rav _aga, _razilian _iuitsu, etc...) Tomas
Just asking, it seems that some people hate the style so much I was thinking that maybe they couldn't bear to say it Your explanation sounds most plausible though. Thank You
I spell it _ing _un, and I've been training it for years. There are long running and very comical lineage wars between various 'grandmasters' who all claim to have the 'real _ing _un'. I'm pretty sure there's no such thing, and they all deserve to get the **** ripped out of them for thinking they're the ultimate badass, whilst never actually stepping up to test that theory. Yes I'm bitter.
What do these various wing chun organisations call themselves when it comes to using chinese characters...because its not possible to vary the chinese characters for wing chun. Variation can only occur when a phonetic alphabet is used. So the whole thing just seems silly.
I think that's where the problem comes in - they use regional variations of the pronunciation of the characters to differentiate themselves from the other schools.
I think the whole thing started in the eighties when Willam Cheung trademarked "WC(tm)" in the west and later Leung Ting trademarked "WT(tm)" in Europe. And so if anybody wanted to start a commercial school, calling it WC or WT would constitute trademark infringement. People from different lineages or people that split from Cheung or Ting then started using alternative spellings. A very silly story indeed, especially considering the fact that most of the splinter styles are actually better then the "originals". Tomas
Hi Tomas, Are you sure SiFu William Cheung attempted or succeeded in tradmarking Wing Chun in the West? It seems unlikely. I have heard of the trademark game with Leung Ting SiFu but have seen no proof. /Marcus
Marcus p, I may be wrong, again, this story is ancient. I remember that the reason Leung Ting trademarked WT was that WC was already being used. It could have been "Traditional Wing Chun" that Cheung trademarked, I don't remember any more... And no I don't have a proof, this is all from what my old instructors told me. I vaguely remember that there was a more recent issue with WT trademark in China, and I think that (ironically) Leung Ting can not legally use WT in China...) Not that it matters...it's just a curiosity. Tomas
