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The word “ken” has at least 2 meanings: Ken (拳) means fist, while ken (剣)
means sword.

If a Japanese speaker hears about the video game Tekken (鉄拳, “iron fist”) for
the first time, without seeing the word written down, would they be able to
tell that Tekken refers to “iron fist” and not “iron sword”?

I found [this answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/51759/40499), which
mentions that homophones are sometimes distinguished by the pitch accent.
However, I’m not sure if this applies to monosyllabic words like “ken”. I also
found [this
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/40669/difference-in-
ambiguity-between-written-and-spoken-japanese), where answerers point out that
ambiguity is often circumvented in everyday speech. However, I’d like more
specific information on if/how this is achieved in this case.
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2020-10-04T10:15:13.577
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question
spoken-language homophonic-kanji ambiguity
Does “Tekken” sound like “iron sword” to someone unfamiliar with the franchise?
There is no difference in pitch accent between 鉄拳 and 鉄剣, so it purely depends
on which word is more familiar to laypeople. Neither is particularly common in
daily life, but IMO 鉄拳 is a little bit more familiar because there is a word
鉄拳制裁, which is used outside gaming or history contexts. "Iron sword" is
usually referred to simply as 鉄の剣. It's just a hunch but I think more than
half of Japanese non-gamers think of 鉄拳 first when they hear てっけん with
absolutely no context.

(By the way, on-on compounds do have pitch accents; see [this
answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/57423/5010) for example.)
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2020-10-04T11:50:56.173
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It's related to rather contexts than phonology. Other than the lecture of
Japanese history, one normally associates "Tekken" with 鉄拳{てっけん}. I do not
think one can associate "Tekken" with 鉄剣{てっけん} at present-day. Japanese
Emperor does not have to have an iron sword for their authority at present-day
(2000 years ago possibly he uses it).

"Ken" itself has many homonyms 剣, 券, 拳, 圏, 県, etc. They use it in a daily
life. As for 剣, a martial artist : kendōka(剣道家) may tend to relate the sound
"Ken" to 剣. However, I believe even the martial artists do not use 鉄剣{てっけん} at
present-day and they consider "Tekken" as 鉄拳{てっけん} such as iron-fists or
video-game.
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2020-10-04T11:58:10.433
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answer
I think normal Japanese people cannot get what "tekken" means if he/she hears
it first time, even if that word appears in a rich context. Neither 鉄拳 nor 鉄剣
is something you can easily come up with. 鉄拳 - how can you imagine a fist made
of iron? 鉄剣 - a sword is usually made of iron, so that it is quite unexpected
you explicitly state that fact. (If you list up swords of different materials
e.g. "seido-ken", "gin-ken", "tekken",... maybe he/she can understand.)

We (or maybe just I) usually write kanji to explain, maybe swiping our fingers
in air. If we cannot do that (e.g. talking over phones) we explain in
different words. 鉄拳 is 鉄の拳 ("tetsu no kobushi"), 鉄剣 is 鉄の刀 ("tetsu no katana"
- well 剣 and 刀 are actually quite different things but he/she can hopefully
understand what I mean, or maybe I need to explain more like "鉄の刀だけど刀ではなく剣".)
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2020-10-06T04:38:35.920
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answer