Oh brother, I definitely feel like I'm the only audience this blog would be for, but it doesn't matter, that's what a blog is about! 

The Thesis:

I'll start things off with a thesis and my very personal opinion: I am a firm believer that the American mahjong community should be working to normalize and use on streams a set of english vocabulary to reduce the friction of evangelizing riichi to other people in this country. I guess my previous article about localizing tiles is this opinion, expressed in a different way.

I think my opinion is kind of an unpopular one. Basically, it seems to me that the popular mindset is that the terms are simply Japanese words, you can learn the words and they're very efficient to describe the situation (after all, they're just words). I respect and understand that opinion, but even more than wanting to communicate with established mahjong fans, I really want to attract more outside people to mahjong. It's my belief that using a lot of loan words in regular conversation about the game creates a barrier that beats back casually curious people from pursuing the game further. Now I'm not saying nobody should use or learn the japanese terminology, as a matter of fact, i'm going to spend the rest of this blog trying to argue against using the popular english terminology of bamboos, dots or circles, and characters or cracks.

The reason I believe these should be named in  named sou, pin, and man comes from thinking about the fighting game community.

Reflecting on Language in the Fighting Game Community

This community was a huge part of my life for a long time, and it uses a lot of community created language to communicate ideas inside the game. To me, the process of coining vocabulary and creating terminology is absolutely fascinating to me. Does a widely accepted term get created by one commentator in a spark of brilliance melded with a high tension moment, or is it something that slowly spreads region by region as more people open their minds to the complex expression of intent the game provides? As fighting games have always been sort of a worldwide thing, each region invents their own terminology, and so becoming a fan of fighting games globally involves becoming familiar with everyone's terminology. As a matter of fact, there's a website that's completely dedicated to this psuedolanguage of fighting game discussion, the fighting game glossary! 

If you're a fanatic, you learn everyone's terminology. It's the same here in mahjong as it is in fighting games. Even in regular English commentary for fighting games, Japanese terms such as oki or abare are used. Sometimes, the word is so specialized that you might as well use it. And when it comes to describing how to perform certain actions in the games, adapting a universal language of expression allows for multiple communities to communicate with each other even without knowing the respective language. When it comes to fighting games, that means number notation.

The Importance of Numpad Notation

so one of the ways fighting game fans talk about how to input their combos and special moves is to use numpad notation. Think about the number pad on your keyboard (if you still have one, these rotten kids these days don't even buy keyboards with numpads anymore! how do you balance your checkbooks? 👴👴👴)

So if you think in terms of a joystick at rest, it will be at the 5 position. If you want to record what moving the joystick from down to forward is like, it is down, down-forward, forward, or 236. So if i'm playing Street Fighter 6 and I want to do Ryu's Hadoken, it is 236P, or a quarter circle forward motion and a Punch button. With that in mind, I can read a combo for any game posted by someone from any country, and if they use this number notation, I can read and interpret the inputs and try them myself! Try it now, if you have Street Fighter 6, here's a very basic Luke combo! the > denotes order, and PP means hit two punches.
2LK > 2LP > 2LP > 214PP, 214MP

Number notation helps bring fighting game communities from all countries closer to universal communication not through their native language, but through the psuedolanguage of the game.

Now that i've explained that, is there an equivalence in mahjong?

Numpad Notation for Riichi Mahjong

how do we talk about riichi in typed conversation? Lets consider a really basic WWYD:

Now if i wanted you to write your answer out, there's a very high probability that you wouldn't write "the 8 of characters", you'd just write 8m. I can even write out this WWYD in  a standardized notation:

23458m333555pNN : 6m

Using m for manzu, p for pinzu, and s for souzu is normailzed as far as I can tell across all mahjong communities where people are communicating about riichi mahjong. We can communicate what we mean to the most people around the world when we talk about tiles in this manner. Using romaji for the names of the suits, even in English commentary, EVEN if really trying hard to come up with English analogues for game concepts, makes sense! I think there's no reason to say "ryanmen" over "two sided" for example, but when talking about individual suits, thinking in terms of 3m, 5p, 7s, benefits anyone trying to look up information or helps participate in conversations online about riichi. 

And there you have it, a very very specific riichi mahjong opinion, and the reason why I believe it. Maybe the next blog will be about something broader! Have a good week!