"Wooden bokken sword" is redundant, since "bokken" means "wooden sword." Bokken are modeled after the katana, and used for training. I'm not familiar with the term "shoto," so I can't help there.
Shoto in this sense I believe refers to a wooden wakizashi (from the dai-sho combination of katana (daito or long sword) and wakizashi (shoto or short sword)).
If that's the right spellings, the second character in "bokken" suggests a broadsword rather than a sabre-type-blade like the katana.
Well then if you prefer, it will be spelled 木刀 and pronounced bokutou. The second character's reading by itself can be katana.
In practice, the words bokken 木剣 and bokutô 木刀 refer to the same item. I don't suspect that Japanese distinguishes between the two quite as strongly as Chinese does. The connotations are still there as you point out, but both 剣 (ken or tsurugi) and 刀 (katana, also pronounced tô in combinations) could be used to refer to swords in general (e.g., 剣道 kendô, which refers to the sportive simulation of sabers and not broadswords). The word 剣 would be, as you point out, in Japanese more often associated with straight-bladed swords and with rifle bayonets, but can also be used for swords in general. The word 刀 would be used in Japanese for sabers and can be used for swords in general, but would not be used for things like bayonets. (AFAIK, Chinese speakers use it as a generic reference to knives, swords, or knife-like devices of any type; maybe someone can correct me on this?) Though I do wonder, now that you bring that distinction up; would a wooden replica of, say, a European broadsword, technically be a 木剣 but not a 木刀, or vice-versa for a wooden replica of, say, an Indo-Persian scimitar? Or would people in Japan even care?
What are u talking about??? I wasn't asking how much a wooden bokken sword cost but what was the difference between a bokken & a shoto. In which when i was searching for my wooden bokken sword i found out that the shoto means short - so its a short sword vs a bokken which is about a 41" sword. But thanks for postin:hat:
It's just bokken or bokuto. They both refer to a wooden sword so saying wooden bokken sword is a bit redundant and a little odd
As others have pointed out, we say bokuto or bokken to refer to a wooden sword, the terms are interchangeable and don't typically refer to any style. In kendo we use a pair of bokken, one short ("shoto") and one long ("daito"). The standard overall lengths are 55 cm and 1 m respectively. Usually when people say "bokken" they mean the long one. This is probably because most people don't learn the kata with the shoto until they are preparing for their 3rd dan exam. Lots of koryu (old schools) use bokken/bokuto for training and their shapes and lengths are different than the kendo ones. If you buy a bokken from a regular martial arts supply store you are likely to get the 1 m in the standard kendo shape. If you need them for other purposes, then you would be shopping in a more specialized place like SDK Supplies or Bokken Shop.
Very interesting post, thanks for the extra analysis! I only knew the difference because I knew that 刀 was the common way of writing sword in Japanese, so I had to look up 剣 and found that it was from the Chinese for a double-edged sword.
