A little help reading some japanese characters

Next of Kin · Post by **Next of Kin** » 2003-02-09 03:38pm

Here is the symbol for the Hombu Dojo for Yoshinkan Aikido. Does anyone here know what the Japanese characters represent? Weemad, Dark would you guys know? I have a couple of guesses but i want to be sure.

Here's the logo:

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2003-02-09 03:43pm

Erm, I'm Chinese, but I'll make my best guess here...
First one used in this context is a suffix for martial arts...
Second one is air, or something related to it. Its hard to translate, again.
Third one is combine...

Of course, I'm reading this from left to right, and I'm putting down the Chinese equivalent of it...

Next of Kin · Post by **Next of Kin** » 2003-02-09 03:46pm

Exonerate wrote:Erm, I'm Chinese, but I'll make my best guess here...
First one used in this context is a suffix for martial arts...
Second one is air, or something related to it. Its hard to translate, again.
Third one is combine...

Of course, I'm reading this from left to right, and I'm putting down the Chinese equivalent of it...

very interesting! I would have thought it said Yoshinkan Aikido. Wrong was I.

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2003-02-09 03:49pm

It might; I have no idea how to pronounce it in Japanese.
The meaning of it shouldn't be too far off though...

Datana · Post by **Datana** » 2003-02-09 05:09pm

AFAIK, Exonerate's correct as to the meanings, but there can be some elaboration -- the leftmost symbol indicates a discipline or path. The middle symbol indicates air or spiritual matters. The rightmost indicates combination or joining. In conclusion, it probably means something like "the art of combining spirit". Some very old Japanese is read right to left; if you do that with this set, you get AI-KI-DOU -- in other words, Aikido.

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2003-02-09 05:21pm

Erm, yeah, what Datana said.
After looking at it, it would probably make more sense reading from right to left...

Next of Kin · Post by **Next of Kin** » 2003-02-09 08:09pm

Datana wrote:AFAIK, Exonerate's correct as to the meanings, but there can be some elaboration -- the leftmost symbol indicates a discipline or path. The middle symbol indicates air or spiritual matters. The rightmost indicates combination or joining. In conclusion, it probably means something like "the art of combining spirit". Some very old Japanese is read right to left; if you do that with this set, you get AI-KI-DOU -- in other words, Aikido.

Thanks for your help guys!