# Aikidou Scroll...



## kakejiku (Dec 22, 2014)

This scroll was commissioned for an Aikidou trainer in the Southern US. It says in English, *Through the virtue of humble training, understanding of Aiki is acquired naturally*.
I had a difficult time obtaining the original Japanese saying, if there is an original quote accorded to Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikidou. So I received help on the translation from two sources, my wife and another gentleman. It reads in Japanese, 謙虚に鍛錬をつめば合気の悟りは自ずと得られる　(_Kenkyo ni tanren wo tsumeba, aiki no satori wa onozu to erareru._) 
Just for informations sake, there were 4 iterations provided by Mr. Akamatsu.  Then my wife took the translations, and melded them into syllabic form that would work for calligraphy and the lines provided. It is written in the Gyousho, semi-cursive style by Ryugyoku Yamada.

The scroll was made by myself, it is a three step style scroll called sandan hyougu. The ichimonji is a a wave pattern with gold and silver. The chuumawashi, intermediate cloth is a burnt orange, with large ivy karakusa (arabesque) pattern. This cloth is a pure silk (Shouken) The Ten/Chi is a dried reed color shike silk. It is completed with a jikusaki that has a red lacquer, and machined edge, and the hanging string is a light green with gold (kinka).


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## K-man (Dec 22, 2014)

kakejiku said:


> This scroll was commissioned for an Aikidou trainer in the Southern US. It says in English, *Through the virtue of humble training, understanding of Aiki is acquired naturally*.
> I had a difficult time obtaining the original Japanese saying, if there is an original quote accorded to Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikidou. So I received help on the translation from two sources, my wife and another gentleman. It reads in Japanese, 謙虚に鍛錬をつめば合気の悟りは自ずと得られる　(_Kenkyo ni tanren wo tsumeba, aiki no satori wa onozu to erareru._)
> Just for informations sake, there were 4 iterations provided by Mr. Akamatsu.  Then my wife took the translations, and melded them into syllabic form that would work for calligraphy and the lines provided. It is written in the Gyousho, semi-cursive style by Ryugyoku Yamada.
> 
> The scroll was made by myself, it is a three step style scroll called sandan hyougu. The ichimonji is a a wave pattern with gold and silver. The chuumawashi, intermediate cloth is a burnt orange, with large ivy karakusa (arabesque) pattern. This cloth is a pure silk (Shouken) The Ten/Chi is a dried reed color shike silk. It is completed with a jikusaki that has a red lacquer, and machined edge, and the hanging string is a light green with gold (kinka).


Very nice!

(BTW 'Aikido' doesn't have a 'u' on the end.  )


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## kakejiku (Dec 22, 2014)

Thank you for the like...

(BTW 'Aikido' doesn't have a 'u' on the end.  )

Had this brought up before, and it would depend on how you view the writing. The character　is  (dou) 道 【どう】 (n) (1) (abbr) road; (2) way; (3) Buddhist teachings; (4) Taoism; (5) modern administrative region of Japan (Hokkaido); (6) historical administrative region of Japan (Tokaido, Tosando, etc.); (7) province (Tang-era administrative region of China); (8) province (modern administrative region of Korea) [Edit][ViewDB][G][GI][A][W] [JW]

You can see an u after the do in hiragana in the above online dictionary reference. Sometimes delineating the long vowel sound in romanized form is done with a superscript bar, or with a u after the vowel. This is no longer standard practice in some circles, but to me personally it is important. What if I wrote the first word in the above scroll as 謙教 (kenkyou) instead of the actual word 謙虚 (kenkyo). It changes the meaning...

So you are right, in America, it is recognized to be written as Aikido　合気土, not the way I wrote it as Aikidou...but then I could interpret the word as 合気土 and translate it as The Earth Chi Harmony...?


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## K-man (Dec 22, 2014)

I suppose then it comes down to translation, a bit like Jujitsu and Jujutsu. Certainly, in the West, and not just America, the accepted form is without the 'u'.


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## Argus (Dec 23, 2014)

K-man said:


> I suppose then it comes down to translation, a bit like Jujitsu and Jujutsu. Certainly, in the West, and not just America, the accepted form is without the 'u'.



Don't you mean Juujutsu? 

You'll find that most students of Japanese are, very rightly, not fans of the "lazy" system of romanization commonly adopted. Elongated vowels should either be written out fully, or designated with a line above the vowel, lest the language starts to look very different: Tokyo -> _toukyou, _Kyoto -> _kyouto, _etc.

It can also be potentially confusing, or even just "not register" when the vowels are given random length and emphasis - not to mention that it's misleading and difficult to look up or guess the meaning of a word based on the characters that would be used to write it. Japanese terminology uses Chinese characters in a manner akin to (but much more common than) Latin or Greek roots in English -- so that you can often guess the meaning of a word that you have never seen or heard before. On-yomi, or borrowed Chinese pronunciations are often used for this kind of terminology, and those contain a lot of varying length vowels corresponding to different characters (ie: shu vs shuu, ryu vs ryuu, sho vs shou) - therefore, mixing them up can be both confusing and misleading at worst, and simply awkward sounding at best.

As for "Jujitsu," that's just wrong no matter how you look at it, unless you're refering to Brazilian Jiujitsu, in which case you might argue that the "wrong way" is now officially "right," and that it's simply a localized loan word, and nolonger Japanese at this point. But when refering to JJJ, _juujutsu _or _jyuujyutsu_ should be used.

And if you're just simply lazy and used to typing Japanese, or reading romanization rendered by a Japanese person not well acquainted with conventions of romanizing Japanese, you may see spellings such as _juujutu._

I have pretty strong feelings on this. If, as an _aikidouka_, you intend to learn the Japanese terminology and culture surrounding the art, it is important to learn it correctly. And more over, it's helpful if you ever have a Japanese speaker in your class. I've met people who mangle the Japanese so badly that I legitimately do not know what they're trying to refer to -- while, on the other hand, I've met instructors who's pronunciation isn't half bad, and it always makes things much easier to follow and comprehend. Not to mention it adds a certain level of authority and respectability to his instruction -- after all, if even the name of the techniques has not been passed down intact, one might wonder how intact the rest of his teachings are.


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## kakejiku (Dec 23, 2014)

I will give an example of what Argus was explaining in the Jujutsu example for the word Judo:
I type Judo as most would see it in Romanized form into hiragana on my computer and change to the Japanese characters: 
I get the following words to choose from
1.十度　Means a degree or change, possibly also to the 10th degree, or it could mean 10 degrees celcius if spoken in certain contexts.
2．重度 Means heavy or severe
3．拾度 Could possibly mean the 10th degree (The first character is an alternative reading of 10)
Now if I type in Judou in Romanized form into hiragana on my computer and change to the Japanese characters I get the following words to choose from
1. 受動　Means passive
Now I type in Juudou in Romanized form into hiragana on my computer and change to the Japanese characters I get the following words to choose from
1．柔道　Finally I got the correct characters for the Martial Arts Juudou. 

I hope that was a clear enough explanation as to why I write the way that I do and even then I still make lots of mistakes and have a difficult time with hearing the short and long vowel sounds in everyday speech.


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## Chris Li (Dec 26, 2014)

K-man said:


> I suppose then it comes down to translation, a bit like Jujitsu and Jujutsu. Certainly, in the West, and not just America, the accepted form is without the 'u'.



Not translation, it's an issue with Romanization. But...there's really no hard standard for Romanization, and most Japanese native speakers just don't care very much about how things are Romanized because the only time that Roman characters are really used in practice is for non-Japanese speakers. Japanese speakers just read the original Japanese, in which there is no confusion.

Best,

Chris


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