Yodan vs Shidan?

[Grappleboxing]

Why is it that a 4th degree black belt is called a Yodan instead of a Shidan when everything else, beside 1st degree Shodan, follows the Japanese number system?

I apologize if this isn't the right section to post this.

 

[Thai Otoshi]

"yon" also means "four".

 

[Jonas g33k]

Ah, "shi" is homonymous with 「死」 which means death. So Japanese people tend to avoid this bad omen by using the second prononciation of 4 which is "yon".

 

[Calibur]

Japanese use the word yon for some situations and shi for others. When it comes to stuf like dates (shigatsu/April) or titles (yondan/ 4th level) the word is set. The general number can be used interchangeably.

Same goes for the number 9 with the word kyu and ku and the number 7 with the word shichi or nana.

 

[Grappleboxing]

Ah, "shi" is homonymous with 「死」 which means death. So Japanese people tend to avoid this bad omen by using the second prononciation of 4 which is "yon".

So Shi could mean four or death, depending on the kanji used? So that is why they used Yondan instead of Shidan, I see.

 

[Harukaze]

So Shi could mean four or death, depending on the kanji used? So that is why they used Yondan instead of Shidan, I see.

More of a coincidence than anything. The real reason is just Japanese grammatical rules, which can be without much of a real reason sometimes (and inconsistent as well). If you really want a push-comes-to-shove reason, it probably has more to do with kunyomi (native Yamato pronunciation) versus onyomi (Chinese-style pronunciation) more than anything else (a topic that is hard to explain without some Japanese language background).