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Erick Mead wrote:
A point I began my observations with. Your objection is needlessly narrow. Its Chinese antecedent is well attested and has the same pronunciation, moreover, as 和 (another level of connection to the concept of "harmony" held out in Western translations). 入 "ru" means "enter, come into and join," and the orthographic distinction is without difference in the context, in any event, as you say.
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I said the
semantic difference is not relevant. In other words, it doesn't matter that the top of 合 has the same shape of "person", just as it wouldn't matter if it were, in fact, "enter". The etymology of the character is unrelated to the coincidental resemblance of one of its components to another character.
The fact that the component is written like 人 and not 入 is simply FYI.
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合 is used for musical notes. "Harmony" is not a stretch as translation here, nor should its usage be overly criticized on the grounds of objection you raise.
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It is also used as a measure of volume and capacity. Which means as much as its use in musical notation. I'm all for a global, holistic understanding of words being used in multiple contexts. That doesn't mean we can throw the native idiom to the wind. I've said many times before, if one wants to define "aiki" as "harmony of ki" with regards to one's personal understanding of aikido, that's great. That's a big leap, though, to "ai means 'harmony'". Harmony has implications that "ai" does not have, and vice versa.
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Josh, your counting coup aside, while all in good fun, the ENTIRE point of post, and that you did not address, was that literary usage is the better guide to meaning for our purposes than disconnected etymological debates. There is no evidence that O Sensei cared much about that aspect of language.
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That's fine for Osensei. But he's not my guide here, and on the whole I don't think he should be used as the arbiter of semantic meaning. The word "aiki" preceded him; he did not coin it. He did not name his art "aikido"; it was given that name by others. The phrase "aiki" (and the word "aikido") continues to be used outside the Ueshiba aikido context. So, rather than try to plumb the depths of the Kojiki for some coded understanding of how Ueshiba may have viewed the kanji 合, I argue for an idiomatic understanding of the words. I feel it is
especially important in contexts such as these, where the vast majority of people have no facility in the Japanese language, and must work from what other people tell them. So, when someone goes off the idiomatic reservation, I feel its important that they clearly express that they are doing so.
As I said, you're free to use whatever folk-etymologies you think will help your understanding. That's my position. I have no interest in debating their validity or lack thereof, which is why I didn't address the rest of your post. I was merely addressing your misunderstanding regarding the composition of the 合 character. You specifically said
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Given that the etymology of the decomposed character itself ( some times unreliable, but valid in this case) is basically 入 一口"join-one-gate."
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I was merely pointing out that the etymology of the decomposed character is not in any way "join-one-gate".