Character Etymology (or decomposition)

[ilprincipe]

Hello,

I see from many threads that this issue has been discussed, but maybe not fully clarified. Apologies if I missed some threads that provide the answer.

I am basically looking for a etymology/breakup/decomposition of most chinese characters, which a good explanation, a helpful 'story' that can be used as a way to remember the character, without any academic rigor, if it does not help. For example:

a) the character 药, medicine. "Traditional Chinese medicine uses herbs, hence the 艹. When curing woulds, a thread is used, hence 约, and a spoon 勺 is given to the patient to feed the medicine. Alternatively, 勺, pronounced (sh-ao), provides the sound component, ao.

(ok..ok..I may have made it up and may not be correct, but this way it is difficult to forget)

2) I am not looking for the evolution of ancient characters into modern Chinese..ie. why the sun becomes 日. We take as a given that we learn the radical and we know all their meanings, already.

3) no pictures, sometimes they just occupy precious page spaces! ..just a list of entries, with a paragraph/few sentences that explain why the character is like that.

4) quite a comprehensive list, say 2,000 characters at least.

5) better if it is online or electronic format, but not entirely necessary

I have asked several Chinese teachers, most times I get a blank look..or 'it is just the way it is'..so I give up.

I have looked at yellowbridge, it is a start, it breaks up (sometimes) sound and meaning component, but there is no 'story' or mnemonic behind. Wenlin appears to be simple too. Tuttle book is the closest I have seen to what I am looking for, but Vol 1, only has a few hundred characters, and still not quite as detailed as I wish.

I once saw a great book that did this, but for Japanese Characters (which is even trickier than for Chinese because the sound portion gets lost in Japanese), I believe it was called a Guide to (remembering) Japanese Characters.

If anyone has any ideas, most appreciated.

thanks

[ailixia]

I think I've read that the Tuttle book is similar to the Heisig book I've just recently began using. Is this what you're looking for?

http://discoveringmandarin.blogspot.com/2009/10/preparing-for-heisig-remebering-chinese.html

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/06/30/ode-to-heisig-and-rtk

http://chinesequest.blogspot.com/2009/10/heisig-files-part-i-history-and.html

[querido]

The ABC via Wenlin has been the cornerstone of my character studies.

T.K.Ann, Cracking the Chinese Puzzles, is probably the ultimate. I have it but haven't started on it.

There's a new book out that also looks good: Hoenig (2000 chars, 496 pages). Here is an excerpt (pdf), and some commentary.

This was my comment, based on the above linked excerpt:

"The mnemonics look unstrained and natural to me.

Pinyin included but not incorporated into the mnemonic- good.

Numerically indexed component graphic blocks- good.

Inclusion of some lower frequency chars, such as "small bird", because they are components in many of higher frequency- good."

[trien27]

a) the character 药, medicine. "Traditional Chinese medicine uses herbs, hence the 艹. When curing woulds, a thread is used, hence 约, and a spoon 勺 is given to the patient to feed the medicine. Alternatively, 勺, pronounced (sh-ao), provides the sound component, ao.

Actually, 药, yao is the simplified form of 藥, which retains the grass radical and used a similar sounding character, 约, "yao" as a phonetic = 艸 [cao, grass], simplified to 艹 + 樂 [le, happiness]. 樂 = a drum in the middle, with two cymbals on each side on a wooden "stage". Possibly a person who's happy, not paying attention to the pain will take their medicine?

勺 is NOT the phonetic for 药: 约 IS! 纟is the silk radical, but in CURING wounds a pot is used to make the medicine. For the diagnosis of an ailment, a SILK thread is used, most notably when the patient is a female in ancient China!

2) I am not looking for the evolution of ancient characters into modern Chinese..ie. why the sun becomes 日. We take as a given that we learn the radical and we know all their meanings, already.

3) no pictures, sometimes they just occupy precious page spaces! ..just a list of entries, with a paragraph/few sentences that explain why the character is like that.

Most characters uses semantics and phonetics, and there's supposedly six ways to create characters:

Simple characters,

pictographs,

abstract characters

semantic-semantic characters,

semanto-phonetic characters, an already existing character with a re-clarified radical, phonetic-phonetic characters [the first syllable of the first character is added to the second syllable of the second character]

Knowing a character's radical doesn't prove a thing. You only know part of the meaning. And sometimes the radical doesn't give the meaning, but the phonetic. Sometimes knowing both radical/semantic and phonetic, doesn't mean you'll know the proper pronunciation: Times changed and the characters were created thousands of years ago, and with borrowings from so many dialects, subdialects & subsubdialects, the pronunciation might or might not sound like the dialect you speak. Sometimes, it's a total surprise, the character sounds nothing like you know.

4) quite a comprehensive list, say 2,000 characters at least.

Go to http://www.zhongwen.com & clicking on any character will give its etymology. But note: The characters on this site is mostly in Traditional Chinese, in which the current Kaishu form developed since the Han Dynasty, and Large seal script is from pre-Qin dynasty era. Small seal script = developed by Li Si, shortly after Qin dynasty was created, by order of Shi Huang. Edited December 28, 2009 at 12:28 AM by imron
merged adjacent posts

[PhilipLean]

Two more books that look useful

What Character Is That?: An Easy-access Dictionary of 5,000 Chinese Characters (Chinese and English Edition) (Paperback) currently US$17.05 on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/What-Character-That-Easy-access-Dictionary/dp/0962311359/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261600693&sr=8-1

and

Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition) (Paperback) on Amazon for US$17.40 http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Characters-Genealogy-Dictionary-Mandarin/dp/0966075005/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Both get excellent reviews.

Read the user reviews and use the "look inside" feature.

[ilprincipe]

thanks for all the suggestions and the detailed explanation for Medicine...I think you should actually write the book...I liked it! thanks

I will browse through the forums and books you suggested and will post back my comments

thanks to all and Happy New Year

[jbradfor]

The website http://chinese-characters.org/ may provide some of what you want.