Chinese character radicals

Radical is a basic component of each Chinese character or character in Kanji or in Hanja. It is written as Chinese characters 部首 (bu4 shou3, Bushu in Japanese), literally meaning "partial head (of the most importance)"

The design principle of radicals is used in Chinese dictionaries and Kanji-Japanese dictionaries to logically order characters in sets besides the number of strokes.

Full characters are ordered according to their initial radical, which fall into roughly 200 types. Then these are subcategorised by their total number of strokes.

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.

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. The question of how many characters there are is a subject of debate.

In the 18th century, European scholars claimed the total tally to be about 80,000. This number, however, is exaggerated, as the most comprehensive dictionary (the Kangxi Dictionary 康熙字典) lists about 40,000 characters. One reason for large number of characters is that they include all of the different characters in the different variations of Chinese. Popular estimates say that about 3,000 characters are needed to read a Chinese newspaper, and 4,000 to 5,000 constitute a decent education.

Often a character which is not commonly used will appear in a personal or place name in Japanese and Chinese names (see Japanese name and Chinese name). This has caused problems with some computer encoding systems which include only the 5000 or so most common characters and exclude the less often used characters. For example, the Taiwanese politician Wang Jian-Hsuan has a name that is difficult to encode in some computer systems because the last character in the name is a uncommon character.

List of radicals

The following is the list of radicals in order of the number of strokes. The list is from Radical-Stroke Index of Unihan Database [2]

One stroke

File:2F00.PNG one, File:2F01.PNG line, File:2F02.PNG dot, File:2F03.PNG slash, File:2F04.PNG second and File:2F05.PNG hook.

Two strokes

File:2F06.PNG two, File:2F07.PNG lid, File:2F08.PNG man, File:2F09.PNG legs, File:2F0A.PNG enter File:2F0B.PNG eight, File:2F0C.PNG down box, File:2F0D.PNG cover, File:2F0E.PNG ice, File:2F0F.PNG table, File:2F10.PNG open box, File:2F11.PNG, knife, File:2F12.PNG power, File:2F13.PNG wrap, File:2F14.PNG spoon, File:2F15.PNG right open box, File:2F16.PNG hiding enclosure, File:2F17.PNG ten, File:2F18.PNG divination, File:2F19.PNG seal, File:2F1A.PNG cliff, File:2F1B.PNG private and File:2F1C.PNG again

Three strokes

File:2F1D.PNG mouth, File:2F1E.PNG enclosure, File:2F1F.PNG earth, File:2F20.PNG scholar, File:2F21.PNG go, File:2F22.PNG go slowly, File:2F23.PNG evening, File:2F24.PNG big, File:2F25.PNG woman, File:2F26.PNG child, File:2F27.PNG roof, File:2F28.PNG inch, File:2F29.PNG small, File:2F2A.PNG lame, File:2F2B.PNG corpse, File:2F2C.PNG sprout, File:2F2D.PNG mountain, File:2F2E.PNG river, File:2F2F.PNG work, File:2F30.PNG oneself, File:2F31.PNG turban, File:2F32.PNG dry, File:2F33.PNG short thread, File:2F34.PNG dotted cliff, File:2F35.PNG long stride, File:2F36.PNG two hands, File:2F37.PNG shoot, File:2F38.PNG bow, File:2F39.PNG snout, File:2F3A.PNG bristle, File:2F3B.PNG step

Four strokes

File:2F3C.PNG heart, File:2F3D.PNG halberd, File:2F3E.PNG door, File:2F3F.PNG hand, File:2F40.PNG branch, File:2F41.PNG rap, File:2F42.PNG script, File:2F43.PNG dipper, File:2F44.PNG axe, File:2F45.PNG square, File:2F46.PNG not, File:2F47.PNG sun, File:2F48.PNG say, File:2F49.PNG moon, File:2F4A.PNG tree, File:2F4B.PNG lack, File:2F4C.PNG stop, File:2F4D.PNG death, File:2F4E.PNG weapon, File:2F4F.PNG do not, File:2F50.PNG compare, File:2F51.PNG fur, File:2F52.PNG clan, File:2F53.PNG steam, File:2F54.PNG water, File:2F55.PNG fire, File:2F56.PNG claw, File:2F57.PNG father, File:2F58.PNG double x, File:2F59.PNG half tree trunk, File:2F5A.PNG slice, File:2F5B.PNG fang, File:2F5C.PNG cow, File:2F5D.PNG dog