Talk:Jodo Shinshu

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[edit] No "gwa" sound in Japanese

While I agree that romaji doesn't have a "gwa" Japanese itself does. The sound a frog makes is usually romanised to "gua." A google searched netted only 22 results for "honguanji." "Honganji" netted 50,800 and "hongwanji" resulted in 80,800. Now I don't know anything about this sect from personal experience, but generally the more commonly used name is what we use on Wikipedia. The final nail in the coffin should be that the sect's official site uses the "w" http://www2.hongwanji.or.jp/english/ .--Dustin Asby 18:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_kana_usage - this sound is not commonly used anymore, but did exist as が

[edit] "Gwa" is here to stay apparently

I once heard from someone who was a Shin Buddhist priest. He pointed out that although Hongwanji is pronounced "hon-gan-ji", the Hongwanji still prefers the more traditional spelling with the "gwa". Why the prefer that rather than a more modern spelling was never made clear to me, but the official spelling does have the "gwa". --Ph0kin 07:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)