HOW
DO YOU SPELL SOMBO?
“Sombo”
is a composite style of jacket wrestling that originated in the former Soviet
Union as a common form of sport wrestling for the fifteen separate republics
that made up the U.S.S.R. Sombo was
also used as a means of unarmed hand-to-hand combat for soldiers, beginning in
the days of Stalin, and today is practiced as a martial art as well.
The term “Sombo” is an acronym for the Russian phrase “Self-defense
without weapons” (SOM-oborona
Bes Orushyia).
When
the sport of Sombo was accepted as the third style of international wrestling in
1967 by FILA (the International Amateur Wrestling Federation), a unique problem
arose: How do you spell Sombo?
Because
the Russian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet, the letters used to spell Sombo
in Russian appear to resemble the English letters C-A-M-B-O.
What looks like a “C” to an English speaker sounds like an
English “S” to a Russian. What
looks like an “A” can be pronounced two ways in English: One way
would be “ah” as in “raw” or “fall” (which would be the right
pronunciation for Sambo). But
in English, “A” can also be pronounced like the “A” in hat
or bad. Unfortunately, the
letters SAM are a common combination in English, usually with the latter,
“wider” sound, as in the name Sam or Samuel.
Thus for most English speakers, the name Sam is the closest guide.
Accordingly, when you spell the word SAMBO, you get what sounds like the
name Sam combined with bow (as in “bow and arrow”) -- which is not how the
word is supposed to sound. However,
if you spell it SOMBO, you get the pronunciation right every time.
That is because in English an “o” in front of an “m” or an
“n” is usually pronounced like the “a” in “fall” (as in the case of
“dog” or “fog”, for example).
So
why do some people want to use the spelling Sambo?
To the French, the spelling SAMBO will give the right pronunciation every
time, but the spelling SOMBO will not. For
them SAMBO sounds correct and hence the French spell the word that way (as do
other romance language countries like Spain). In fact, for many years, the official nameplates for the
international Sombo federation at international meetings had SAMBO on one side
and SOMBO on the other, representing both official languages of most
international sport organizations.
In
recent years, many Russian Sombo practitioners--when writing in English--have
wanted to spell the word SAMBO. But
however much their technical mastery of Sombo is to be appreciated, they are not
the ultimate masters of the English language.
Do we spell Moscow as Moskva?
Of course not.
When
Sombo first was promoted internationally by FILA, beginning in the early
1970’s, the first Sombo committee chairman was Burt Jacob of Great Britain.
Jacob was afraid the spelling Sambo would impede its development,
for many reasons. However, he reasoned that since a “C” could be
soft in English (as in France or city), then he could legitimately
spell the word CAMBO, which he did. By using the spelling CAMBO, with a “C”
instead of an “S,” Jacob
felt he could avoid tempting people to mispronounce Sombo to sound like the name
Sam…and the spelling CAMBO also avoided many derogatory implications.
Part
of Jacob’s expressed concern was that the word SAMBO has many negative
connotations outside the Russian culture. Sambo
is considered a racist term in the United States, for example, and in the early
1980’s the AAU Wrestling Division was actually threatened with lawsuits over
using that name!! A chain of
restaurants called “Sambos” actually went out of business under the
political pressure. For that reason
alone, the spelling Sambo could even hurt the sport of Sombo in the American
television market, which has become a key force in the modern world of sports
and the Olympic movement. Any
sport with Olympic aspirations must be conscious of the American media market.
In other English countries, the term Sambo also has negative connotations,
mostly by reference to the story of “little black Sambo.”
In
Sweden, a “sambo” is a concubine, or live-in girlfriend.
Other meanings of the word Sambo around the world are less controversial,
but still confusing. Pronounce the world slightly differently, and you get a
dance: The samba. In Korea, Sambo
is a well-known company name. The
spelling SOMBO, by contrast, is used only for the sport of Sombo.
To
avoid confusion, legal problems, racial accusations and rampant
mispronunciation, the issue was referred by FILA to University Russian language
specialists, who immediately suggested what seemed to them an obvious solution:
Spell it Sombo. It is a common practice when transliterating from Cyrillic to
English and avoids all the problems that would otherwise occur.
The
main push to spell the word Sambo in recent years has come from Russian émigrés
who find using an “A” to be somehow more familiar--and insist
with typical Russian resolve that they alone know best about anything concerned
with a Russian sport. While
scholars and the more educated Russians have had no problem with the spelling
Sombo, Sombo coaches have not always been scholars.
While
some claim “Sambo” is the original spelling, the fact of the matter
is that once Sombo became an international sport, all three spellings have been
used: Sombo, Sambo, Cambo.
Of the three, however, the spelling Sombo is most likely to not be
mispronounced and has no negative implications, unlike like the other
spellings.
The
Spelling “SOMBO” has been used since the sport became an international sport
and is widely accepted in the world today.
Check out the web site of SOMBO-70, one of the premier Russian clubs in
the world and see how they have their English version spelled…