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Jun Akiyama wrote:
As far as "O" in "O-sensei" meaning "senior" and "Waka" meaning "junior," I do not believe that is the case. The "O" is often written as the same character as "dai" meaning "big, large, and/or grand," but it's probably more often written in Japanese as the same character as "okina" meaning "revered." The "waka" in "Waka sensei" basically means "young" (as Greg wrote above).
Chris? Any other thoughts?
-- Jun
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I get slightly more hits on Google for "big" than for "okina", which is usually a fair indicator of usage (Aiki News in Japanese uses "big"). Also, Sokaku Takeda used the kanji "dai", which implies a kind of precedent for that usage. OTOH, Gozo Shioda used "old" ("ro") when writing about Ueshiba in "Aikido Jinsei".
Best,
Chris