Thread: KeNpo vs KeMpo

To my admittedly limited knowledge, there is no difference; they're two different spellings for the same style. I've heard several different explanations for it; that it was caused by a misunderstanding translating Okinawan characters into mainland Japanese characters, that an early manual on Kempo written by James Mitose had a typo that spelled it Kenpo, or what have you, but as far as I know they both refer to the same art.

the same goes for Kajukembo and Kajukenbo, by the way.

Another explanation for the spelling difference I ran across:

"Actually, the only difference is in the translation of the Kanji to its English form. The rules of Kanji holds, that when a character (written word) ends in an "n," the "n" is pronounced, when spoken; with the exception, that when the "n" is followed by another character (word), which begins with a "p," the two characters are unchanged in the written form and the "n" is pronounced "m". Ken-po follows this rule. So, if following the correct Kanji translation, it is spelled "Kenpo" and pronounced "Kempo". It is only in transliteration that Kenpo is written Kempo."

yup its the same figthing system.