The Origin of the Radical
Originally, radicals were root characters. How did these root characters become radicals, and who invented the term “radical”?
In the Eastern Han dynasty, a scholar named Xu Shen 许慎(65-122) classified 9353 compound characters into 540 categories based on the common root characters they contained. He grouped together characters containing the same root character and wrote their common root character as their heading. Xu Shen refered to this common root character as a “radical.” Xu Shen identified 540 radicals. His groundbreaking method – classifying characters based on their shared component, allowed Xu Shen to compile the first Chinese dictionary. It was written in small Seal Script and titled Shuowen Jiezi 《说文解字》(Character and Word Annotations).
Later, in the Southern Dynasty, another scholar, named Gu Yewang 顾野王(519-581), compiled another character dictionary using Xu Shen’s method. This dictionary was named Yu Pian 《玉篇》(Jade Articles) and was written in Regular Script listing 542 radicals.
Mei Yingzuo梅膺祚, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty, compiled a dictionary named Zihui 《字汇》(Collection of Characters) published in 1615 and reduced the number of radicals to 214. The Kangxi Character Dictionary《康熙字典》, published in 1710 retained the 214 radicals.
Modern Chinese Linguists further analyzed the 214 radicals and made a further deduction from 214 to 201. This 201 radical system is what is used today in prominent Chinese dictionaries, such as the Biaozhun Hanyu Zidian 《标准汉语字典》(Standard Chinese Character Dictionary), published by The Modern Chinese Dictionary Publishing House in 2000. Another commonly used dictionary, the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian《现代汉语词典》 (Modern Chinese Dictionary) published by the Commercial Press in 2005, also uses the 201 radical system. We introduce 100 of the 201 radicals in class.
