The Physical Feature of Ancient Radicals
Chinese writing originated from pictographs. If we track down the origins of each radical, we will find that they began as pictures of physical things – people, animals, and objects. This is the reason that many Chinese characters have strong meaning-script correspondence. Consider, for example, the oracle bone inscription for the radical 目 mentioned above. We can guess it’s meaning is "eye" just by looking at it. The picture below is another example. They are the origins of the radical 犬.
The evolution of the radical 犬 is illustrated below:
Oracle Bone Inscription: Bronze Vessel Inscription: Small Seal Style: Regular Style:
In the oracle bone inscriptions, we can tell that the top portion of the symbol is the head of the dog and the bottom portion is the tail. The two lines on the left are the legs. Just as real dogs’ tails tend to curl, their representation in oracle bone inscription features a curved tail. The curl is even more exaggerated in the bronze inscriptions. In the small seal and regular script styles however, the pictographic nature of the characters is obscured and we can no longer guess that 犬 means dog.
If, however, we equip ourselves with the knowledge of evolution of radical forms from their conception to today, it will be much easier for us to memorize the shape and meaning of their contemporary forms. Here are a few more examples: the radical 山 (mountain) is derived from the pictograph which depicts three mountain peaks; the radical 水 (water) in its ancient pictographic form resembles flowing water; the radical 日 means sun and its pictographic form looks like a round sun; and the radical 人 means person and its pictographic form looks like a profile of a person.
When radicals are used to form a compound character, they can be placed in different positions relative to other components in the compound – such as above, below, or to the left or right side of the other components in the compound. In order to fit into the square block shape of contemporary compound characters the radical often is given an alternate, truncated version. We call these condensed forms “alternate versions” of the radical, while characters that retain their original shape are called “regular versions.” The regular and alternative versions of a radical differ in shape but not in the meaning and sound it represents. For example, the alternative version for 犬 is 犭. In the character 哭 the radical 犬 apperas in its regular version, but in the character 狗 it appears in its alternate version, standing on the left side of the compound character. The regular version of the radical 心 – heart – is used in its “regular version” in compound characters such as 思. But 心 also has two alternative versions –忄 and , which are used in compound characters like 情 and 慕. I will introduce both the regular and alternative versions of each radical. The alternative versions are indicated with parentheses. Of course, some radicals do not have alternative versions.
In the 1950s, the government of the PRC, in an attempt to expand literacy, promoted a more simplified form of Chinese characters. More than two thousand high-frequency characters have been simplified – redesigned to be written with far fewer strokes. Just as many integral characters were simplified, many redicals were also transformed into simpler forms. To cite an example, the simplified version of the compound character 餠 is 饼. The radical 食 in the left part of character is written as 饣 in the simplified system. I indicate the simplified versions of radicals in parentheses.
