chinese-characters.org

This post may get a bit technical for the less technically-inclined. But those people probably aren’t the ones frequenting this site anyway. After all, who but the technically-inclined aren’t going to run screaming from learning Chinese characters?

“The term radical has been strenuously objected to by some,” states the Wikipedia article on this subject, which I would highly recommend to anyone with at least a passing interest in the subject. Basically, the word “radical” in this context was borrowed from its use as a description of European-language words. A radical is a root which, once identified, gives a clue to the meaning of the word as a whole. For example, the fact that “chatter” contains “chat” as its root lets us know that chattering is related to chatting.

This concept breaks down, though, when applied to Chinese. We could posit the idea that every single Chinese character, which itself represents a morpheme, is a semantic root. There are some characters which are frequently used to form prefixes or suffixes, but they often can stand for a meaning in their own right. Therefore, it is not necessary to break down a character in order to find its root meaning component, insomuch as the character represents a unit of speech.

Thus today the study of Chinese etymology has been divided into two camps: (1) Those who seek understanding of written Chinese by seeking to understand the development of the characters. For this study, I am of the opinion that you could find no better place to start than this site right here. (2) Those who seek to trace the meanings of Chinese words by considering only the sounds of the words, and largely ignoring the shapes of the characters, which do not have a 1/1 correspondence with the sounds they represent. If this interests you, I recommend using the links to the Tower of Babel site that are found on the Reference pages for each character in our database. Although far from exhaustive, the Tower of Babel site contains information about the phonetic development of thousands of Chinese morphemes (represented by characters). This second method was pioneered by the Swedish linguist Bernhard Karlgren, who also contributed greatly to the modern understanding of the characters themselves. But back to the subject.

Although a scientific inquiry into the development of Chinese words may or may not involve studying the characters themselves, let me take this opportunity to state emphatically that there is value in breaking the characters down for learning purposes. Unlike most other modern languages, which are purely phonetic in representation, Chinese words contain elements that directly hint at the meaning. In my opinion, it would be a shame if we ignored these elements while trying to learn the characters. But what do we call them?

Since, as I mentioned above, the idea of radical as meaning semantic root doesn’t really apply to Chinese in the same way it does to purely phonetic written languages, we could extend it to refer to the semantic root of the character itself, that is, its fundamental meaning component. However, the same Wikipedia page I cited above notes an example where this breaks down, namely 採. In this character ⺘(手) is the traditional radical but in reality the meaning is contained in 采 which is not only the modern simplified version but actually the original version of the character. In case this is confusing let me explain. At some point in time the Chinese scribes decided they needed to add more components to the characters in order to make them easier to classify. That’s why they added ⺘to 采, even though (click through to see the original pictographic form) 采 already contained a hand at the top (which, by the time of the scribes, had apparently already become too obfuscated to perceive). For some reason, in addition to the new character 採, the old one 采 continued in use as well, or was later resurrected into use, and now we have the two characters with a related meaning but different “radicals”. In short, trying to classify characters by their apparent semantic components is an exercise in futility.

If we reject the notion of calling semantic components “radicals,” what other options do we have? Wikipedia states, “any portion bearing meaning rather than purely sound” is now generally termed a semantic component or element, a determinative, or a signific. While “semantic” seems to be the most common alternative to “radical,” it also is related to “signific,” both terms implying the use of signs, that is, markers of meaning. If this seems abstract, consider a literal sign as used along the road in many countries with pictures or diagrams intended to make the sign understandable to as many passersby as possible, regardless of their language. Here and here are a couple of humorous examples. Chinese meaning components (in their original forms) were made to serve a similar function.

Wikipedia says the third, and de facto prevailing meaning of “Chinese radical” is section headers of a Chinese dictionary. Although the terms “section header” or “classifier” are other alternative translations of the Chinese word 部首 bùshou, neither of them are a particularly fitting translation, nor are they as catchy as the word “radical.” Hence, there seems only one logical choice for the name of a lookup index.

One last word about radicals (in the prevailing sense mentioned above): By whatever name we call them, English or Chinese, they are by nature arbitrary. As in the case of 採 above, it is impossible to consistently identify the “root” or even the meaning components without an exhaustive investigation into the original forms of the characters and the reason for their inclusion (if that were possible, which it isn’t). So using a radical index to find characters will always involve frustration for the user. If there were only a better way to organize characters! There is, but I’ll leave that subject for a future post.

I hope, first, that you’ve followed this discussion so far, and second, that it was enlightening or even convincing. I’m hoping to contribute to the trend toward using the word “semantic” to describe meaning components. As far as using the word radical to describe character indexes, it seems there is little alternative. That is, unless you, dear reader, can coin a new English phrase that fits the bill better. Of course, it’s really just a question of semantics, isn’t it?

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If you’re new to learning Chinese characters, or even if you’re not, these words may sound like buzzwords. Here’s a brief breakdown of what these words mean.

“Semantic” has to do with meaning. If a component is semantic, it adds to the meaning of the character. Some components tell a story, such as 李 plum: A kind of tree 木 children 子 like. Others just seem to contribute a suggestion to the meaning, as 好 (good) contains woman 女 and child 子, two things a man is fond of, suggesting something good.

Phonetic components have some relation to the sound of the character. Ma 嗎 is a spoken particle 口 (the semantic part is a mouth) that just happens to sound like the Chinese word for horse 馬. Often the phonetic will help you learn the exact sound of the character, even the tone. However, most often it is only a hint, and sometimes it is even misleading. Chinese, being a very old language, is always changing and therefore words which at one time had a similar sound no longer sound alike. These clues can still be helpful. At the very least knowing about them makes it easier to understand and remember the characters.

At a later time I will post an article about why I avoid the use of the word “radical” except in dictionary lookup tables.

With regard to Chinese character information, this site aims to provide both breadth and depth. The depth comes from the unique etymological information that you won’t find anywhere else except on this site, because it is original research. As pointed out in the last post, this research is found so far on the pages devoted to the most common 1000 characters and their base components.

The breadth, on the other hand, comes from the number of characters this site provides information about. Today I have updated the site to give information not only for the most common 3-4000 characters, but for over 13,000. This means virtually every character you will encounter online is contained in this database, along with information about it. One of the most valuable features this site offers (in my opinion) is the “contained in” tab. This not only shows you common words containing the character but also shows which other characters contain this character as a component. The most common phonetic sound value is given when available. This is useful for committing the component to memory as it can help you to predict the sound of new characters you will encounter containing this component.

Here’s an example: The character 工 is commonly used as a phonetic. By clicking the link you can see that 工 is not always a phonetic component, and when it is, the resulting characters have a variety of pronunciations. However, two pronunciations, hong and gong, clearly stand out above the rest. This means when you see a character you don’t know that contains 工 as a phonetic, there is a good chance it is pronounced hong or gong.

In the future, this site shall contain more information about simplified characters. For now, there is a new section devoted to simplified character phonetics. Although there is some overlap between the two sections, this new section helps you to find simplified characters that use a different phonetic than their traditional equivalent. Although looking up simplified characters on this site still isn’t as easy as I’d like it to be, this step should help.

This week, I’ve updated the data on the site. Many characters now have added information. In fact, there is now etymological and mnemonic information for all of the top 1000 characters.

Greetings, site visitors,

You may have wondered why there are so many “posts” on this weblog. I’m using WordPress’s ability to keep track of comments, so I can add an interactive element to each page of the site.

Please take a moment to look around. Try going to the radical index and clicking a heading. Then click on one of the characters. You’ll be presented with a “character information” page. Find simplified, traditional, and ancient forms of the character. See Mandarin pronunciations and English definitions. For some characters, etymological information is given, showing how the character developed and giving a useful mnemonic to help you remember it.

Notice the tabs at the top. They give you more information about the character, as well as an opportunity to post your own comments.

Speaking of comments, we love feedback. What do you think of this site?

This is the place to discuss the character . Click the tabs above for more information. Feel free to post any thoughts or questions you have about this character.

This is the place to discuss the character . Click the tabs above for more information. Feel free to post any thoughts or questions you have about this character.

This is the place to discuss the character . Click the tabs above for more information. Feel free to post any thoughts or questions you have about this character.

This is the place to discuss the character . Click the tabs above for more information. Feel free to post any thoughts or questions you have about this character.

This is the place to discuss the character . Click the tabs above for more information. Feel free to post any thoughts or questions you have about this character.