Radical (Chinese character)

A radical (from Latin radix, meaning "root") is a basic identifiable component of every Chinese character, namely, of the Chinese Hanzi, the Japanese Kanji, and the Korean Hanja. The name is an English translation of the characters 部首 (bù shǒu in Chinese; bushu in Japanese; busu in Korean), literally meaning "partial head", where "head" means "the most important (part)".

Radicals are used in Chinese dictionaries, Kanji-Japanese dictionaries, and Hanja-Korean dictionaries to order characters in sets by the number of strokes they contain.

Full characters are ordered according to their initial radicals, then these are subcategorised by their total number of strokes.

This principle of categorisation is exploited by everybody who must learn to write Han characters: The vast number of Chinese characters can be much more easily memorized if they are mentally decomposed into their constituent radicals.

Number of radicals

Though radicals are widely accepted as a method to categorize Chinese characters and to locate a certain character in a dictionary, there is no universal agreement about either the exact number of radicals, or the set of radicals. Not to mention which set of radicals to use for certain characters. The increased use of simplified characters makes the situation even more complicated.

Fortunately, some famous dictionaries have provided us with some de facto standards.

The Late Han dictionary Shuowen Jiezi by Xu Shen (许慎) (d.147 AD) is the first to thoroughly describe the characters and their radicals. Xu attributed all characters to 540 radicals.

The early dictionaries did not order the characters for each radical by the number of strokes. This ordering was introduced by the Late Ming dictionary 字彙 (published around 1615). It also reduced the number of radicals to 214.

The most influential authority for radical-stroke information is the eighteenth-century Kangxi Dictionary (1716), using the 214 radicals from 字彙. Nowadays, the 214 Kangxi radicals remain the best known.

The count of commonly used radicals, however, is probably less. The Oxford Concise English-Chinese Dictionary, for example, has 189.

With the adoption of simplified characters, a lot of characters are difficult to classify under the 214 Kangxi radicals. As a result, various modern radical sets have been introduced. None, however, are in general use.

The 214 Kangxi radicals serve as a base for various computer encoding systems. For instance, The Unicode radical-stroke charts are based on the Kangxi radicals.

How to use radicals in dictionary

The commonly used system, known as the "radical-and-stroke-count" method, makes use of the fact that Chinese characters (total number very approximately 5,000-50,000) are assembled from some 1,000-2,000 subcomponents. Of those subcomponents a few hundred are designated as "radicals" for indexing purposes. The most commonly encountered radicals are very basic ideograms, representing simple concepts like "man (人)," "sun (日)," or "tree (木)". The steps involved in looking up a character are:

(a) identify the radical under which the character is most likely to have been indexed;

(b) find the section of the dictionary associated with that radical;

(c) count the number of brush or pen strokes in the non-radical portion of the character;

(d) find the pages listing characters under that radical that have that number of additional strokes;

(e) find the appropriate entry or experiment with different choices for steps a and c.

For example, (信) (man standing next to his words(mouth with sound) meaning truth, faith, fidelity, sincerity, trust, confidence, reliance, or devotion. This particular character is composed of the radical for "man," and 7 additional strokes. To look this up one by the multi-radical method, [1] one finds the radical for "man" in the dictionary (most dictionaries will have an index page to help with this step) and then passes through 1 additional stroke, 2 additional strokes, etc. until one finds entries for 7 additional strokes. If the radical chosen by the user matches the radical used by the dictionary compiler (not a problem in this simple example, but it can be tricky), and if both user and dictionary compiler count strokes the same way (occasionally a problem), the entry will be found.

List of radicals

The following is a list of radicals in order of the number of strokes. The list of radicals is based on the Radical-Stroke Index of the Unihan Database . Both simplified and traditional forms are given (e.g. 马/馬). Some radicals widely adopted in modern dictionaries (e.g. 刂) are included as well. Different forms of a radical are provided in parentheses (e.g. 乙(乚乛)).

Whilst the list of radicals is correct, do not assume that the character examples given below belong to these radical. The example characters show elements where these radicals appear only. For instance, the character 套 is shown under the eight stroke radical 長 (long) however, it is actually under the three stroke radical 大 (big). Also, the character 生 is shown below as belonging to the one stroke radical 丿 slash, the character 生 is itself a radical.

One stroke

Two strokes

Three strokes

Four strokes

Five strokes

Six strokes

Seven strokes

Eight strokes

Nine strokes

Ten strokes

Eleven strokes

Twelve strokes

Thirteen strokes

Fourteen strokes

Fifteen strokes

Sixteen strokes

Seventeen strokes

External Links

• A good detailed introduction on radicals

http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/radicals.html