Was 術 (as in 柔術) ever pronounced jitsu?


柔術 is often rendered in English-speaking countries (and France, Germany, and
Brazil) as "jiu-jitsu" or "ju-jitsu", even though the actual Hepburn
romanization is "jūjutsu".

[Wiktionary's page on 柔術](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9F%94%E8%A1%93)
writes:

> 柔術 ( _hiragana_ じゅうじゅつ, _rōmaji_ jūjutsu, _historical hiragana_ じうじゆつ)

The historical hiragana here explains how we get the "jiu" in "jiu-jitsu", but
then shouldn't it be jiuj **iu** tsu, not jiuj **i** tsu? Does rendering it as
"jitsu" have any basis in historical Japanese pronunciation or orthography, or
is it a corruption by speakers of European languages?




I'm not very familiar with the diffusion process of jujitsu, but the practice
to read 術 somewhat like じつ exists(ed) in the traditional Tokyo dialect.

[Japanese
WP](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80) says:

>   * 「じゅ」が「じ」、「しゅ」が「し」に転訛する。（例）準備→じんび、美術→びじつ、新宿→しんじく、趣向←→嗜好
>

This is a well-known phenomenon: //u// in Eastern dialects is generally
unrounded, so a weakened //ju// could be indistinguishable or even merged with
//i//, under the influence of the palatal //j//.

Since the modern standard language is based deeply on the native Tokyo
pronunciation in phonetics, this feature has been near-officially received in
Standard Japanese. However, along with the decline of "pure" Tokyo accent, the
pronunciation has almost faded out even in Greater Tokyo in our generation
(together with [鼻濁音](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/26227/7810) etc). I
myself only occasionally hear such accent from senior speakers (≧ 50s?).

I found a document that NHK (the national broadcaster) decided to [abandon a
recommendation that tolerated the shift of //ju// to
//i//](https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/research/kotoba/pdf/20170401_1.pdf)
(originally defined in 1960).

Thus, it is quite possible that those who disseminated _jujitsu_ actually
pronounced the word in that way themselves, and so is it transcribed
naturally.




I'm not very familiar with the diffusion process of jujitsu, but the practice
to read 術 somewhat like じつ exists(ed) in the traditional Tokyo dialect.

[Japanese
WP](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80) says:

>   * 「じゅ」が「じ」、「しゅ」が「し」に転訛する。（例）準備→じんび、美術→びじつ、新宿→しんじく、趣向←→嗜好
>

This is a well-known phenomenon: //u// in Eastern dialects is generally
unrounded, so a weakened //ju// could be indistinguishable or even merged with
//i//, under the influence of the palatal //j//.

Since the modern standard language is based deeply on the native Tokyo
pronunciation in phonetics, this feature has been near-officially received in
Standard Japanese. However, along with the decline of "pure" Tokyo accent, the
pronunciation has almost faded out even in Greater Tokyo in our generation
(together with [鼻濁音](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/26227/7810) etc). I
myself only occasionally hear such accent from senior speakers (≧ 50s?).

I found a document that NHK (the national broadcaster) decided to [abandon a
recommendation that tolerated the shift of //ju// to
//i//](https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/research/kotoba/pdf/20170401_1.pdf)
(originally defined in 1960).

Thus, it is quite possible that those who disseminated _jujitsu_ actually
pronounced the word in that way themselves, and so is it transcribed
naturally.

