Systematics of Chinese Characters An integrated summary of Chinese characters based on original etymological classification Hongzhou Dong Copyright © 2021 Hongzhou Dong All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author Contents Introduction 1 Chapter1.Basicconcepts 3 1.1.ThecountofChinesecharacters 3 1.2.SixmethodstocreateChinesecharacters 3 1.3.Clericalchangeandsimplifiedcharacters 7 1.4.Somemisleadingradicalnames 8 1.5.Howtousethisbook 9 1.6.Symmetriccharactercouples 11 1.7.Symmetriccharacters 13 1.8.Half-to-wholecouples 15 Chapter2.BasicPictographs 16 2.1.Humanrelevantcharacters 16 2.2.Pictographsforanimalnames 17 2.3.Pictographsforplantrelevant 19 2.4.Pictographsfororgansofhumanoranimals 20 2.5.Pictographsfornaturalthings 21 2.6.Pictographsforhouserelevant 22 2.7.Pictographsforvesselrelevantthings 23 2.8.Pictographsforweaponsandsharptools 24 2.9.Pictographsofotherman-madethings 24 2.10.Pictographsofabstractedconcepts 26 2.11.Pictographsofsomeverbs 28 Chapter3.Simpleideographs 29 3.1.Charactersfornumerals 29 3.2.Namesofdirectionsandpositions 30 3.3.Namesfortimeandcalendar 31 3.4.Namesofancientordinals 31 3.5.Someadjectives 34 3.6.Somecharactersrelevanttomodalparticles 35 3.7.Somesimplenouns 36 3.8.Someverbs 37 I 3.9.Someadverbs 38 Chapter4.Radicalsrelevanttonature 39 4.1.Sun 39 4.2.Moon 41 4.3.Water,riverandrain 41 4.4.Fireandgas 43 4.5.Landandmountain 45 4.6.Stoneandjade 48 4.7.Livestockandanimals 48 4.8.Birdsandbirdsfly 53 4.9.Plants 56 Chapter5.Radicalsrelevanttohuman 63 5.1.Variousappearancesofhuman 63 5.2.Variousofhuman’sbehaviors 71 5.3.Radicalsseemlikehuman 73 5.4.Radicalsofdoublehumans 75 5.5.Radicalsrelevanttowoman 76 5.6.Radicalsrelevanttochild 77 5.7.Radicalscontainhuman 79 Chapter6.Radicalsrelevanttohands 80 6.1.Variousappearancesofhands 80 6.2.Variousappearancesofdouble-hand 88 6.3.Characterswithmultiplehands 91 6.4.Characterswithfurthercontractedhands 93 Chapter7.Radicalsrelevanttoorgans 95 7.1.Head 95 7.2.Horn 97 7.3.Hairandbeard 98 7.4.Eye 99 7.5.Ear 100 7.6.Nose 101 7.7.Mouthandtooth 101 7.8.Heart 105 7.9.Arm 106 7.10.Flesh 106 II 7.11.Bone 107 7.12.Tail 108 Chapter8.Radicalsrelevanttofeetandwalking 110 8.1.Variousappearancesoffeet 110 8.2.Variousappearancesofwalking 114 Chapter9.Radicalsrelevanttolivingactivities 117 9.1.Farming 117 9.2.Houses 120 9.3.Food 125 9.4.Vesselsandnets 126 9.5.Tablesandbeds 130 9.6.Clothes 131 9.7.Silkandrope 133 9.8.Cuttingtools 136 9.9.Weapons 140 9.10.Transportation 145 9.11.Commercial 147 9.12.Musicinstruments 148 9.13.Memorialceremony 148 9.14.Sealsandflags 149 9.15.Countryandcity 150 Chapter10.Similarideographorphono-semanticparts 152 10.1.Partshavemultiplemeaningsorsources 152 10.2.Differentideographpartssharethesimilarsources 161 10.3.Frequentlyconfusedetymologicalidentifications 162 10.4.Loanvariantpairs 164 Bibliography 168 Characterindex 169 III Introduction AllofthethousandsofChinesecharacterswerecreatedgraduallyinhistorybyancientpeople. ThemethodscreatedChinesecharacterscanbeclassifiedassixtypes.Itisveryimportantand helpfultounderstandsomeetymologyprinciplesonChinesecharacters. Even in China, currently few people have learned much about Chinese etymology. PeopleusuallylearnandrememberChinesecharactersbytheirradicals, strokes,meaningand pronunciation. However, few people know why a Chinese character gained its current appearance, and what are the really logic to constitute each of the tremendous Chinese characters. Many foreign people would say learning Chinese is more difficult than learning other languages, because need remember thousands of Chinese characters, comparing with only 26 Latin letters. The most difficult aspect is that we should remember the pronunciation of each Chinesecharacter,otherthanrecognizingthepronunciationbyspelling. So some scholars have written books and dictionaries to introduce Chinese etymology. However, in some of these books, only introduce hundreds of Chinese radicals separately. Readers still did notgrasp the rules on Chinese etymology so cannot analyze other characters whicharenotexplainedinthebooks. In many books and dictionaries, Chinese characters are classified and sorted by phonetics, stroke types and/or stroke counts.But theradicals and strokes arebasedon current simplified Chinese characters. Many radicals were contracted or transformed from other radicalsorradicalcombinations.Manyofthenamesofradicalsmisleadreaders. In this book, the major principles of Chinese etymology are introduced. And the names ofradicals are showed with the original meanings and the original pronunciations. The major radicalsareclassifiedsystemicallybythenaturalpropertiesandoriginalrelationships. Themostimportantradicalsandwhichhavethemosttypesofvariantsare人,手and止. So there are three independent chapters in this book to specify these three radicals. If readers graspthevariantexpressionsof人,手and止,willopenagreatdoortounderstandahundred ofotherradicalsandtremendousChinesecharacters. This book focuses on the compound ideographs. Also explains a few of phonetic- semantic characters if the radicals were contracted or obscure. This book is not a dictionary, so will not introduce every radical, nor explain many phonetic-semantic characters. For example, this book does notintroduce characters with radial 金 or 马(馬), although there are about 700 and 300 phonetic-semantic characters consisting of radial 金 or 马 ( 馬 ), respectively. Because in most of these characters, radical 金 and 马(馬) are not contracted, andtheetymologicalsourcesareeasytobeidentified. 1 This book summarizes the characters which share very relevant sources, such as 久, 夂, 夊 and 㐄. Some characters are inverted right to left from other characters, or show upside- downformsofothercharacters,suchas从and比,后and司,癶 and 舛. So these characters have the same, similar or opposite meanings. When use these characters as radicals in compoundcharacters,theserelationshipsareshortcutstounderstandthecompoundcharacters. In most of existing books and dictionaries, radicals are usually sorted by phonetics, stroke typesand/orstrokecounts.Itishardtoimagethatcharacters从 and比,后 and司,癶 and舛 have so close relationships, respectively. In this book, they are classified together in the same tableorsection. This book will explain the etymology sources of about 1,800 Chinese characters, which arecompoundedbyabout250basicpictographs.Manyofthese1,800Chinesecharacterswill go no to make up of other complicated characters. So through the explanations of a few characters can show readers the whole picture of all Chinese characters. After read through this book, it will become very easy for you to understand other thousands of Chinese characters. 2 Chapter 1. Basic concepts 1.1. The count of Chinese characters It is impossible to exactly count how many Chinese characters have been created, just like it isimpossibletocounthowmanyEnglishwordsorhowmanywordswrittenwithLatin letters havebeencreated. ChinesecharactersareusednotonlyinChina,butalsoinKorea,Japan,ancientVietnam, and some other countries adjoin to China. Those countries not only use Chinese characters, butalsotransformedcharactersandcreatednewcharacters. HerearesomefunfactsabouthowmanyChinesecharactershavebeencreated: 1) Book“ShuowenJiezi”(说文解字)introduced9,353characters. 2) “KangxiDictionary”(康熙字典)introduced47,035characters. 3) “The Great Compendium of Chinese Characters” (汉语大字典, edition 2010) collected 60,370characters. 4) “DictionaryofChineseCharacterVariants”(異體字字典)collected106,230characters. The Table of General Standard Chinese Characters has 8,105 characters, with 6,500 being common. Standard GB/T 2312 collected 6,763 characters, and standard GBK collected 21,003 characters. By year 2020, Standard Unicode 13.0 collected 93,858 CJK (China, Japan and Korea)UnifiedIdeographs.Thisnumberiscontinuouslyincreasingeveryyear. These tremendous Chinese characters are compounded with only about 600 basic pictographs. This book will introduce the etymology sources of about 1,800 Chinese characters, which are compounded by about 250 basic pictographs. Many of these 1,800 Chinese characters will go no to make up of other complicated characters. After read through this book,itwillbecomeveryeasyforyoutounderstandotherthousandsofChinesecharacters. 1.2. Six methods to create Chinese characters All of the thousands Chinese characters were created gradually in history by ancient people. ThemethodscreatedChinesecharacterscanbeclassifiedassixtypes.Itisveryimportantand helpfultounderstandthesixmethods. AllChinesecharactersarelogograms,butseveraldifferenttypes canbeidentified,based on the manner in which they are formed or derived. There are a handful characters which derive from pictographs (象形; xiànɡ xínɡ) and a number characters which are ideographic (指事; zhǐ shì) including compound ideographs (会意; huì yì). The characters of these three typesareverysimpleandbasic,andcreatedearlierthanothers. 3 Chapter1 But the vast majority of characters originated as phonetic-semantic compounds (形声; xínɡshēnɡ). The other categories are rebus loan or phonetic loan characters (假借; jiǎ jiè) and "derivative cognates" (转注; zhuǎn zhù). Modern scholars have proposed various revised systems,rejectingsomeofthetraditionalcategories. At present, more than 90% of Chinese characters are phonetic-semantic compounds, constructed out of elements intended to provide clues to both the meaning and the pronunciation.However,asboththemeaningsandpronunciationsofthecharactershavebeen changed, contractedor simplified over time, many ofthese components arenolonger reliable guides to either meaning or pronunciation. The failure to recognize the historical and etymologicalroleofthesecomponentsoftenleadstomisclassificationandfalseetymology. 1.2.1. Pictographs The earliest significant, extant corpus of Chinese characters is found on turtle shells and the bones of livestock, chiefly the scapula of oxen, for use in pyromancy, a form of divination. These ancient characters are called oracle bone script. Roughly a quarter of these characters are pictograms while the rest are either phonetic-semantic compounds or compound Ideographs. Despite millennia of change in shape, usage and meaning, a few of these charactersremainrecognizabletothemodernreaderofChinese. Roughly 600 Chinese characters are pictograms (象形; xiànɡ xínɡ; 'form imitation') – stylized drawings of the objects they represent. These are generally among the oldest characters. A few, indicated below with their earliest forms, date back to oracle bones from thetwelfthcenturyBC. Oraclebonescript SealScript Character Pinyin Meaning 日 日 rì Sun 月 月 yuè Moon 火 火 huǒ Fire 水 水 shuǐ Water 木 木 mù Wood 土 土 tǔ Earth 人 人 rén Person 目 目 mù Eye 4