"Soke" Kanji

If this is the wrong section for this, I apologise. I could not think of anywhere else to put it.

I am webmaster for our Dojo, and our Soke is to be featured on the site. I was asked to put his entire name and title in kanji, which doesn't pose a problem except I cannot find the kanji for Soke.

IF anyone can point a helpful finger in the right direction, I would be extremely appreciative.

Are you able to view this wiki entry? The correct characters are at the very top. I couldn't get the kanji to display right here:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AE%97%E5%AE%B6

If not, look up "souke" in a dictionary. People often drop "u" after "o" in Japanese words when writing in english to avoid mispronunciation, so it can make it hard to find the characters for those words.

By the way, you don't really say the "u"--it just indicates a "long" syllable (draw out the "o" sound for two beats) rather than a "short" one. English doesn't have this distinction, so it can be hard to recognize. For example, "dojou" is a kind of fish, but "doujou" is where bujutsu is studied.

Most Japanese speakers are able to figure out what you really mean to say from context, however!

Arigato

I had the second character, it means house. Now, I can find the first one... or piece it together, as I have had to do before. I'll link it here when I get done, in case anyone wants it.

Quote:

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I had the second character, it means house. Now, I can find the first one... or piece it together, as I have had to do before. I'll link it here when I get done, in case anyone wants it.

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"House" is only one of the many meanings this character can take. Another is "family", and another (the one involved here, I assume) is "expert", "specialist", "master of one's trade or craft". This suffix is used, for instance in the Chinese words for "writer", "calligrapher", "dancer", etc... The first character means "ancestor". "Soke" should therefore mean something like "ancestor master".


I might be mistaken though, because the meaning of a given kanji / hanzi can sometimes vary from Chinese to Japanese.

Hope it helped anyway...