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Well if we can participate....the languages understood by the main people in this company include: Native level: English / Japanese / German / French / Romansh / Hebrew Various levels of fluency: Irish / Italian / Spanish / Portuguese / Québécois / Kiswahili Then - if you include occasional contributors - there are all kinds levels of languages understood such as Yoruba, American Sign Language, Hawaiian, Russian, etc >99% of the work we do is in either Japanese or English though so apart from in background music few of those languages get heard on the regular.

Native language is Portuguese. Started learning English when I was around 12 or so; my dad forced me to take lessons, but I did get a lot of practice playing videogames all day and watching pro wrestling. It did turn out to be a good idea, thanks dad. Started learning Japanese by myself in college, again due to pro wrestling but also because it was such a different language from the ones I knew and, well, I had nothing better to do. That also turned out to be a good idea since I wound up moving to Japan and getting a job here. I also speak some half-assed Spanish due to being a native Portuguese speaker (and we did have Spanish classes in high school).

Nishonoseki feels like it would be the most obvious one, in that you have quite a number of stables that rarely if ever produce sekitori (Shibatayama, Tagonoura, Otake, Nishiiwa, Minato, Kataonami) and several more which are still quite young with the jury still out. There is a good quantity of oyakata in Nishonoseki ichimon attached to stables that don't really produce. So there's definitely scope for Isegahama ichimon to outproduce Hakuho's generational peers in other ichimon over the next decade, given that he's got a significant jump on most of them (apart from Nishonoseki himself and maybe Naruto) in terms of recruiting.

Yes and no. Latin is far more complex, having declinations like German and Greek. Let's say that Italian is to Latin what Dutch is to German. Dutch also abandoned declinations (formally in 1945, in spoken language much before). I have some splash of Dutch and the two languages have clear differences. So, knowing Latin is useful yet somewhat limiting for learning Italian. Also, there are vocabulary differences between Latin, Italian, and also Spanish. Keep in mind that for Romance languages Latin is the '1.0' vanilla version over which multiple Germanic, Greek, and Arab influences added substantial patches. Despite phonetic similarities, Linguists found out that Italian and Spanish share 'only' 81% of their respective vocabularies. Just saying, this datum rises up to 89% between Italian and French. So yes, whoever would confide in their Spanish to learn Italian could get a cold shower. As I said, knowing French would make a better deal (accent differences notwithstanding).

The latest video is a behind-the-scenes look at Arashio stable, with Hiro getting a lot of access to the rikishi. I've got high hopes for this channel the way it's started out.

Beautiful thread I'm Czech and that's also my mother tongue. This allows me to understand Slovak very well (these two languages are very close to each other) and, to some degree, Polish (in a conversation, both sides have to put some effort into making themselves understood, though). The clarity of other Slavic languages is decreasing with distance. As I spent my youth in Communist Czechoslovakia I was made to learn Russian at school, too. I still remember some pearls, such as "The Pioneers were going to the Artek camp," or "Comrade Lenin used to like birds." I'm fluent in both English and German, I know reasonably well Latin, some rudimentar ancient Greek and was briefly interested in Italian and Esperanto in the past.

My native language is Italian, but I am good enough also in Venetian due to, well, cultural contamination. Being born in Venice and such. For anyone interested, just like most Italian dialects Venetian is much more than Italian spoken with a funny accent. Grammatically is closer to French (être-en-train and things like that) but phonetically is much like Spanish. Venetians most often speak directly Venetian while on vacation in Spain and locals pretty much understand them. Tried this myself with a Spanish colleague and he said he understood everything I said. Italian (which is mostly a rending of Florentine and Roman dialects) is a step away from this. Passing to "serious" languages, I am quite fluent both in English and French (although I am told I keep a heavy Italian accent while speaking French). I also know some German and Greek albeit in a really, really basic fashion. Learnt them to read the language, not to speak it. Archaeological stuff. I also have some knowledge of ancient Greek, Latin, and Egyptian pretty much for the same reasons. Lucky me, no one is going to ask me for a chat in these languages ever. Last line, I have somewhat of an A2 in Japanese from my college years, but it is mostly gone by now. I however still enjoy trying to understand whatever I can while following bashos. Not very much, to be honest.

How insistent are you on the distinction between a language and a dialect as the former having a navy? English is my primary language, but reasonably fluent in Chinese (all aspects) and Cantonese (spoken only). Passing familiarity with Malay vocabulary - and by extension some Bahasa Indonesia as well - from classes in secondary school that I've since returned to the teacher. Can speak and read Japanese well enough to get by but would die of shame and embarrassment if asked to actually hold up my end of a Japanese conversation, since my kanji reading is largely a cheat code from knowing Chinese. Also enough of a passing familiarity with Romance etymology via English and Latin to comprehend bits of Romance language vocabulary, although language grammar is my weak suit, and I'd probably get screwed over by false friends. Familiarity with Asian languages (other than the obvious Japanese) seems to be a bit rarer here. CS-wise, Python and SQL as well.

Not to forget the most useful language for maintaining several sumo games: SQL

I can recognise just about every language represented in geoguessr within a phrase or two. Learned how to read Cyrillic (Russian) characters, also for the purpose of playing geoguessr. I have some level of confidence in my spoken Japanese - was just two marks short of officially being N2 qualified (business-level fluent) in 2020... my kanji skills are atrocious unless I practice often, so they've waned again since then. Studied introductory Italian, Spanish and French, and I tend to understand snippets of conversations in these languages but can't really formulate anything anymore or even remember basic vocab. If Japan ever opens back up to a degree I'm happy with, I'll be considering that language qualification again and potentially moving there.

Interesting article I came across today, regarding ex-Hakuhou's becoming Miyagino. This is reportedly a young oyakata's take: "Usually when you establish a heya you need money, lots of it. You need to buy land and build a building. If you take over a heya, you need to buy the building from the retiring oyakata. Getting some rikishi to follow you there is also not an easy task. Since the rikishi need to be schooled in the sumo way by the Kyokai, and there are maintenance costs as well, it's customary to pay the retiring Oyakata for that as well. When Futagoyama beya and Fujishima beya merged, it was rumored that it cost 300 million yen. But Hakuhou obviously didn't have a lot of expenses. That is because while still active, he skillfully built his army of future rikishi that he chose personally. He planned his future move from early on and created some routes of recruit. He established the "Hakuhou Cup" where he could check out the future prospects first hand. He established close relations with sumo powerhouse Tottori Johoku high school. Additionally, he had good relations with college powerhouse Nichidai, through Tottori's coach who is a Nichidai alumni. He also has obvious connections to Mongolians who are studying in Japan. That's how he was able to recruit some great prospects. There are 17 rikishi in Miyagino beya at present, but the majority are Hakuhou's boys - Sekitoris Ishiura, Enhou and Hokuseihou, Makushita Houkahou, Mukainakano, Raihou, Sandanme Senhou, Chura, Kenyuu and Jonidan Takabahou, Ishii and Kurokage. Ex-Miyagino has certainly benefitted from that. The next step seems to be to become head of his ichimon. Current head of Isegahama beya/Ichimon isegahama Oyakata will be retiring in three years. The next head of the Ichimon will probably be Asakayama (ex- KaioU) who is very popular. After that, it seems it will be Hakuhou's turn. Isegahama Oyakata is planning to pass the heya over to Terunofuji, so we may see a Hakuhou-Terunofuji battle for the Ichimon riji in the future.. Hakuhou's current target seems to be to widen his support within the Ichimon with his eyes on the prize. The first step towards all that was becoming a heya-owning Oyakata." My take edit: And there's Kawazoe of course, who wasn't mentioned since he doesn't exist yet. And Ootani (not sure if he's Hakuhou's recruit, but probably is), who just went 3-0 in Maezumo. Another edit: Looking at the individuals' records, most of them are duds, Some recruited 7-8 years ago. In the lower ranks, other than so far successful Mukainakano and Raihou (who just hit the wall at the bottom of Makushita), the rest are Sandanme/Jonidan regulars, some for many years.

#20 Kohei Takahashi (高橋 光平), Saitama

#19 Akitoshi Ishida (石田 晃敏), Chiba

#18 Kazusa Ishiara (石新 一早), Okinawa

#12 Fumiya Nakagawa (中川 結哉), Osaka

#11 Tomohiro Akutsu (阿久津 智洋), Tochigi

#10 Shoma Haga (芳賀 翔真), Fukushima

#9 Keisuke Yoshida (吉田 圭佑), Aichi

#8 Ryuta Takagi (高木 立太), Ishikawa, Takaryu, Kise (March 2014 - May 2021)

#7 Koichi Kataoka (片岡 孝一), Chiba

#5 Daisuke Sasaki (佐々木 大輔), Aomori, Sasakiyama, Kise (Jan 2010 - )

First video, Asashoryu: We have almost reached agreement about educating a lad from Kazakhstan in sumo wrestling in Japan. I wholly support him; I would like to have my own Kazakh pupil. He is very big, with good physical characteristics. I think this will work out, and I ask everyone to support him.

In December's All Japan Championship, where he earned the SdTD, he was listed at 180cm. He looked about the same height as other competitors listed at that height. He has absolutely massive legs and has a very powerful build - as mentioned, like he's part bull - could make him appear shorter than he is at first glance.

The most common complaint about Hokuseiho is that he doesn't have a tachiai, but I think there's a genuine question of does Hokuseiho really gain from charging hard at the tachiai? Here's this super tall, slow, clumsy guy who doesn't weigh insanely much, so he's probably a bit top-heavy as well. Charging in fast against a shorter, quicker, more agile opponent, what exactly is he gaining? Seems to me he's just begging to be henka'd or ashitori'd or something. Instead he stands up slowly, his opponent gets a good hit in, he absorbs it and grabs the belt with his crazy long arms, and then they're locked in a belt battle with a 200cm giant who can get all kinds of angles and leverage. Isn't that exactly what he wants? Looking at his 4 losses in juryo, they're to 25 year old uni star Oshoma who beat him on the belt, Shimazuumi who he had a good position on until Shimazuumi managed to pull a Shodai trick near the edge, Roga who got an excellent grip out of the tachiai and got Hokuseiho's belt without giving up a belt grip to Hokuseiho, and former Komusubi Ryuden who beat him on the belt. So in what's essentially his Juryo debut, he goes 11-4 with really only 1 loss resulting from a bad tachiai. Two losses to guys who are probably just better than him right now, and one loss to Shimazuumi who pulled off a very nice move well after the tachiai. Is the tachiai really a big problem, or are we just expecting a fish to climb a tree by expecting him to do sumo like someone 185cm?

So after 3 years we'll have a proper jungyo thread again. On August 14th the jungyo will be in Kasukabe, Saitama, the first there was in 2018 natsu-jungyo-2018. Kasukabe basho action committee related people met on the 4th in the city hall. http://kasukabe.keizai.biz/headline/552/ Jungyo man Edagawa was on tour, after a long break this familiar face again All makuuchi rikishi on the Nagoya basho banzuke are scheduled to take part Saitama TV