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Hi everyone!
Because the exams are almost here but more specifically because of a weird theoretical quasi-architectural course concerning clothing, I want to do some research.The interesting thing with Kanji is how while not being representations of sounds, they are not entirely visual representations, at least not all of them. They usually comprise a meaning, an idea, as with 日 and 本 making the sun’s base, 日本.
Or how 人 and 本, more vaguely but surely make up: body (体)Another interesting fact is how the various items that dress up a body are linked to different verbs
かぶる for hats (jisho.org has both these kanji: 被る, 冠る, I am not sure what’s going on there)
掛ける (かける) for (hanging) glasses
着る (きる) for upper body clothing
履く (はく) for below the waist (pants, shoes)
巻く (まく) for wraping (scarf)
締める (しめる) for tying (ties, belts)
I know there are more, and I am certainly interested, but what I am in search of is some etymological analysis of the example kanji and how it’s tied with each kanji’s radicals.
I hope many of you will find my little side-quest interesting as well,
SotosI’m rather interested in etymology myself. A brief google search turned up http://www.kanjinetworks.com/index.cfm though I’m not entirely sure how informative it is. A sample search got me some kinda self-referential etymology…
In the absence of any actual etymology, I tend to make it up myself, for ease in memorising. For example, 着る is the sheep radical (羊) over the eye radical (目), so it kinda shows pulling the wool over one’s eyes… which is what one does when they put on a woolen jumper. Of course, that doesn’t help for the same kanji’s other reading 着く (つく) which means “to arrive”. Similarly, 掛ける has about a thousand meanings, one other of which is “to make a phone call”, but to me the kanji kinda looks like a side-on view of two frame hooks hammered into a wall, and a picture frame hanging on the hooks. Hanging, you see? =)
While I can’t say I’ve ever heard 巻く or 締める as clothes-putting-on verbs before (I was taught just plain old する for accessories), as just plain old “to tie”, it’s worth noting that the left-side radical for 締 is the thread radical (糸), while the bottom right is a cloth (巾). The top right is a slightly modified stand (立), but I’m not really sure what to make of that. Maybe… when you’re tying a knot in a cloth, you have to stand on one end to pull it tight?
Thanks for your reply Joel. Well, the hanging example seems a little far fetched, but the thread and cloth radicals are quite convincing
Well, the hanging example seems a little far fetched
It is, a bit – that’s why it doesn’t really work. I keep getting it confused for 倒 =P
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