Puneet Varma (Editor)

Radical 194

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Pinyin:
  
guǐ

Wade–Giles:
  
kuei3

Jyutping:
  
gwai2

Bopomofo:
  
ㄍㄨㄟˇ

Cantonese Yale:
  
gwai2

Hiragana:
  
キ, おに ki, oni

Radical 194

Radical 194 (鬼 Unicode U+9B3C, pinyin guǐ meaning "ghost" or "demon") is one of eight Kangxi radicals written with ten strokes.

The character is historically composed of 儿 "legs", 田 representing a large demon's head and a curl looking similar to 厶 taken to represent a swirl of vapour, or a demon's tail. The character can be traced to the oracle bone script, where it depicts a man kneeling on a monster head.

Most of the characters derived from the radical have meanings related to ghosts or souls, including 魔 "devil, demon", 魑 "black magic", 魘 "nightmare", 魄 "soul". In some signs, however, the radical is present purely as a phonetic marker, for example in 魏, the State of Wei during the Spring and Autumn period.

Literature

  • Fazzioli, Edoardo. Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. 
  • Li, Leyi: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, ISBN 978-7-5619-0204-2
  • Harbaugh, Rick, Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary, Yale University Press (1998), ISBN 978-0-9660750-0-7.[1]
  • Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth (江伊莉), 甲骨文的“鬼”与假面具 (The Gui-Spirit in Oracle Bone Inscriptions), International Conference Celebrating the 95th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions", Anyang, China, 1994.

    • References

    Radical 194 Wikipedia
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