Is there a collective noun for a group of people doing kendama?

[robin_bird]

So there's a herd of cows, a flock of sheep, and so on.  A group of jugglers is called a neverthriving of jugglers. 

Is there already a term for what a group of people doing kendama should be called?

The weekly juggling club that I attend is called Minnesota Neverthriving and I've wanted to do a club t-shirt for awhile.  I'd like to get "the" correct terminology for kendama. 

Robin

[BKA]

Well there are "kendama players" or "kendama-ers" (an ugly word), but a fun and also apposite word in fairly common use is "Clicker".
So how about a Clique of Clickers?

Any other suggestions welcome!

[robin_bird]

If there's already a term, I'd like to figure out what it is.  Are there many people on this forum that are hooked into the Japanese kendama culture?  If there's a name that goes back in history, like a neverthriving of jugglers, it seems like it would come from Japan.

Otherwise, we should make one up.

A clique of kendmaists or kendama-ists (also not a great word, but a bit better than kendama-ers).

[The Void]

Well, first of all, are we assuming that there is a Japanese equivalent to the format "a [murder] of [crows]" (which may not even be the case)? Googling "collective nouns in Japanese", and following a couple of links finds these:

Most Japanese nouns are pluralized by way of counter words.
For example, the counter word for 'pencil' is 鉛筆 (enpitsu), and the counter for long thin objects is 本 (hon). So 'five pencils' would be 鉛筆五本 (enpitsu go-hon).
For other nouns, usually involving people, you can just use the suffix '達' (-tachi), as in 子供達 (kodomo-tachi; 'children').

The only Japanese noun I can think of that has a true plural form is 'person' (人; 'hito'), which becomes 人々 (hitobito; 'people'). There are probably at least a few more, but I can't think of any right now.

- from http://www.omniglot.com/blog/?p=89

So that gives us
けん玉達 : "kendama tachi" = "kendama children" as an option. Google translates this back as "We kendama"!

and

Japanese Collective Nouns

Do the Japanese use collective nouns the way we do, like "pride" and "gaggle" and "herd"? If so, what's the collective word for a large group of swans? Black Carrot (talk) 00:30, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

    You can say 白鳥の群れ or simply 白鳥群.--K.C. Tang (talk) 02:32, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I believe the first two symbols stand for swan. What's the other one? 99.7.49.133 (talk) 06:49, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

    群れ represents the native Japanese word mure ("group"), 群 alone represents the Sino-Japanese morpheme gun (also "group").--K.C. Tang (talk) 08:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

        I would be surprised to hear that other languages had anything corresponding to the fanciful list of collective nouns which various writers have saddled (or endowed, if you will) English; but Japanese certainly has a range of counter words which partly answer the same function. --ColinFine (talk) 16:22, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

        I never thought of counter words as being collective nouns, as they always come with a number, and even come with 'one', while collective nouns indicate an unspecified number of [put your noun here], and always indicate more than one. However, nice way of thinking of things, there, Colin. I shall use that example next time I am teaching the subject!--ChokinBako (talk) 23:10, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

-from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2008_November_21

And that one would give us
けん玉の群れ : "kendama-no mure" (I think) = "kendama group" , although google back-translates it as "A flock of Kendama"
or けん玉群: "kendama gun" = "kendama group", back-translation: "kendama group"
... but do both of those refer to a group of kendamas, rather than players thereof? I suspect so.

Disclaimer: Google is very fallible with Japanese<>English translations, and I don't speak Japanese! All this is fishing in the dark.

I think our best bet for a more informed decision would be Damadude, who speaks Japanese, and currently lives there. I'll give him a poke....

[robin_bird]

Thanks for the research.

Any word from damadude?

[Winter Solstice Kendama]

None yet, but I spoke with a Japanese colleague about this and our mutual love of the cuppy/ball.

"– you certainly made me in to thinking mode... To be honest with you, I cannot think of a word just like those of English.  The best options for "A group of Kendama players" is "Kendama Geinin Dan" (Kendama Performers' Group). When "players" is translated, the most popular word for it is "Senshu", but Senshu is more like a player attending a contest, Olympic, games, etc. "Performer" is usually referred to a person / player who has certain level of skills – so usually, in natural Japanese, if you have very basic skills who can't do fancy tricks are not really called Performer. But there is no suitable alternative...

Likewise, therefore, "performers" can also refer to a group of jugglers and even a circus, actors & actresses.  Players in Japanese (Senshu) refer to people who compete in a game.

Hope this points us in the right direction. A Kendama Performers Group sounds about right to me

-Curtis

[Damadude]

Thanks for the research.

Any word from damadude?

Sorry for my late reply.

Actually playing kendama here in Japan and going to the competitions I talked with a lot of kendama players here.
They refer to each other as "senshu" (選手) just as Curtis' Japanese friend in the post above this one already stated.
For example Curtis would be called "Curtis-Senshu", I would be "DamaDude-Senshu". Both of us would be "Kendama-Senshu".
"sen"(選) has the meaning of "selection" or "being choosen among many". "Shu" basically means "hand" but also "the way of doing" for example some "art" or some "skill".  So originally you can to understand it as "those choosen among many for their way of doing their/a specific art/skill". If you then make it "kendama senshu"(けんだま) it would be "those choosen for their way of doing the art/skill of kendama". This understanding is quite open in my opionion.
Also the contemporary official translation would still be "kendama player" or "kendama athlete" depending on how sportive your understanding of kendama is. My personal impression here in Japan is that those who play kendama and go to the competitions favor a much more sportive approach to kendama than we do in Europe. So for their selfunderstanding "senshu" in the meaning of player or athlete seems to be appropriate.
If this understanding fits for players outside of Japan is their's to decide.

Hope this made the Japanese part a little bit easier to understand.

[LarsVegas]

That makes me Rarusu-senshu 

[Damadude]

That makes me Rarusu-senshu 

Exactly ラルス選手 

[robin_bird]

Interesting.  Thanks for the info.

[Craftybuddy]

Robin,

Why don't you make two different types?? 

Senshu "選手" is referring to a player who competes. If the collective noun you are wanting to use for your T-shirt which is suitable and a group of competitors such as can be seen in a Tournament in mind, then it needs to be called Senshu Dan "選手団".  This can promote a team of Kendama players, etc.  Senshu refers to a solo competitor; Senshu Dan refers to a group / team of players..

For another type of T-shirts which wearer are more like enjoying the play with many tricks, etc., not necessarily competing against one another, then then I think in Japanese (Chinese) character "けん玉芸人団" (direct translation of Group of Kendama performers, as in the street performers) would also look nice on T-shirts.

Or even writing in Kendama "ケンダマ・パーフォーマー" ("a Kendama Performer" as in the street performer, again) seems also cool to me (if you want a larger text, please let me know and I can send it to you) because it is quite Japanese; Japanese people would like it that way and I wouldn't be surprised if I see it in Japan!.  Or "ケンダマ・アーティスト" (Kendama Artist) would be really nice, too!! Yes, you don't have to be an Artist to have "Artist" in Japanese - anything you can do in a creative way such as many different tricks can be called Artist (particularly in Japanese - English mother-tongue people may call it Jap-lish!!).

Perhaps those variety of logos may go well and be attractive to many different kinds of Kendama players!  If you need any further suggestions, just let me know! 

Good luck!

Yoko

[Thorny]

This was so interesting to read!
Thanks for the insight DamaDude and Yoko!

[eoramo]

I would likely consider and would actually want people playing kendama as Kendamans.  I think that would be just great and suit the players well. Don't you just think that would be nice, right?

[AlexSmith]

I would likely consider and would actually want people playing kendama as Kendamans.  I think that would be just great and suit the players well. Don't you just think that would be nice, right?

Ha, this is my favourite reply thus far. Lets not forget the kendawomans though...

[SamB]

I would likely consider and would actually want people playing kendama as Kendamans.  I think that would be just great and suit the players well. Don't you just think that would be nice, right?

Ha, this is my favourite reply thus far. Lets not forget the kendawomans though...

Haha! Agreed. A great name staring us in the face the whole time! Maybe Kendamans (male) and Kendamen or Kendames (female - as in the german "damen" or the english "dames")