Just a language question for people who speak japanese. What kind of counter is being used in these words: Ikken, niken, sangen (一間, 二間, 三間, …). I believe it’s less general than any kind of physical spaces, but I couldn’t find information with some higher level of depth (not even a table with more numbers, like it’s easy to find for people, animals, flat objects, … so is it more like a go related thing?). And also the トビ, why in katakana and what is it’s meaning? Well, the move is so ubiquitous that it generated some curiosity in me about the word. Thanks!
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The counter being used is 間 (ma/ken/gen), which I believe counts intervals, particularly in traditional Japanese architecture and, by extension, in Go. It’s not a general counter for any kind of physical space.
As for “why katakana?”, I’m less sure. I know that katakana can make a word stand out, much like italicizing or bolding in English. In Go diagrams or texts, it could be used to immediately signal a specific move.
Disclaimer: Non-native (JLPT N4), so I might be wrong or missing something important.
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This is less of a language question, but more of a phenomenon about the evolution of the Japanese language and cultural history over time.
Since the transmission of Go to Japan, the majority of the history of the game of Go, Japanese players would use terminologies from ancient Chinese sources and books, and it stayed this way all the way to the late 19th century, even the early 20th century. Here is an example of a book published in 1914 for learning Go on your own.
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/906346/1/12
You can see that almost all the terminologies used at the time were still kanji of ancient Chinese origin. And in the next few pages, you can find the terminologies for “jump” - “關”
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/906346/1/14
And in the description, it said it is commonly referred to as 一間飛び and used hiragana to help the reader know how to pronounce it. And 飛び is pronounced as tobi (とび).
However, after the Meiji Restoration, many foreign words started to get translated into Japanese using katakana, and it was a fashion to write and especially print documents using katakana (easier and cheaper to print katakana without any notations). And soon it became a fashion to use terminologies with katakana as upperclass and as a symbol of sophistication. And eventually, Go terminology also joined the fad. After the Meiji Restoration, the traditional Go houses lost their status and funding from the government, and new organizations like Hoensha rose to replace them, and they had to find new financial sources. One of the new sources of income was publishing newspapers and magazines, as well as newspaper Go matches by top players sponsored by wealthy noblemen (and they were often also owners of corporations). Here is a Go book published in 1920
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/961585/1/19
You can see that the use of katakana started to replace some of the traditional terminologies. And you can see トビ replacing the old one 關
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/961585/1/23
This trend continues, in a book for absolute beginners published in 1925, after the establishment of the Nihon kiin
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1872753/1/20
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1872753/1/21
The basic terminologies were now printed in the format of both the kanji and how to pronounce them in brackets using katakana, like 飛(トビ), 尖(コスミ), and the description for is that トビ is also known as 一間飛, and you can see examples of them in the following pages (for 二間飛, 三間飛)
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1872753/1/22
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1872753/1/23
As to why they were commonly known as such, even when the ancient Chinese\ terminologies were used before the 19th century, that is a whole different historical issue altogether. However, the replacement of old terminologies from kanji to katakana was a gradual process. The older generation, when they learned the phrases they got used to them and taught the next generations using them. However, when new mediums like printing newspapers and magazines started to appeared, and books for beginners started to use katakana as supplement terminologies, we started to see the early 20th century players started to use them more and more often, and include them in the commentaries, hence the next generations after them get used to teach their students with both, and so on. During and after WW2, there were many who wished to abolish kanji altogether, and many would start to use katakana when they taught the next generation. So generation after generation, fewer kanji were used for the terminologies, and eventually majority of them were katakana.
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And “tobi” means jump, so literally one-space-jump and so on. Straightforward meaning, not idiomatic or poetic, which is kind of normal for terms needed for teaching the game. I’ve sometimes heard commentators on NHK Go say, “tobi” without specifying the distance, and the same applies to “keima” (horse or knight moves), with the interval more likely mentioned when it’s longer.
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Thanks for the answers! That takes care of my 3 questions 
@Counting_Zenist Very thorough, are you a historian? 
Interesting, since I don’t remember where I read it, if you just say “tobi” you mean the one-space jump. But you mean in the context of a game with several moves already made.
Yes. That sounds correct. I may be wrong about the broader application, but since the audience will see the number of spaces for themselves, that number could be implied, which is common among Japanese speakers. Japanese is a high-context language, with a lot of inference being assumed all the time.
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I’ve been playing Go as long as I can remember, and have been interested in the culture and history of Go since my University years, and I’ve had my Ph.D for a couple of years now. And most academic studies about Go are in the fields of sociology, education, and literature, rather than history.
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