Stroke Order For 母

[minsad77]

Hello,

How do you write 母? I've seen two versions online.

Do everyone write the "two dots" before the "centre horizontal stroke", like this:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E6%AF%8D-order.gif

Or some write the "horizontal stroke" before the "two dots":

http://www.cchar.com/

Which one is correct?

谢谢你们。

[Don_Horhe]

I write it dot-stroke-dot. It's how I was taught, and it is the stroke order both Wenlin and Nciku give.

[semantic nuance]

The first version you offered.

[Hofmann]

Hello,

...

I write two dots and then horizontal, like your first link. This is the correct stroke order (田蘊章 (2004). 《歐楷解析》. 天津: 天津人民美術出版社. ISBN 7530525875. p. 24). When it is part of other characters, I write the two dots as a vertical stroke.

[Jose]

This is one of those controversial cases. I learned to write it with the two dots last, just as in the cchar.com link, and that's how I still write it. It's one of those characters, like 火, where I've recently learned that the way they originally taught me is not the standard one.

Hoffmann, the official Mainland stroke order, according to the 现代汉语通用字笔顺规范 is the one Don_Horhe described ("dot-horizontal-dot"; see page 21, seventh character on the right-hand column in the bad scan offered by china-language.gov.cn). I think the 现代汉语通用字笔顺规范 (语文出版社, 1997, ISBN:7801262018) is the most authoritative source for stroke order in Mainland China. That's the reference cited in the Wikimedia stroke-order files (even if many of those image files don't adhere to it), and the fact that china-language.gov.cn has a copy seems to indicate that it is in fact regarded as a prescriptive reference.

A very similar case is 舟, which I also learned to write with the two dots after the horizontal stroke, the order used by the cchar.com site. Again, this character appears as dot-horizontal-dot in the Mainland 现代汉语通用字笔顺规范 (page 31, tenth character on the left-hand column), and dot-dot-horizontal in the Taiwanese 常用國字標準字體筆順學習網 site.

[Hofmann]

Thanks for the links. I've been looking for a good source for mainland standard stroke orders.

But the OP asked for the correct stroke order, not a standard.

[Jose]

But the OP asked for the correct stroke order, not a standard.

And how do you define "correct" other than by reference to a standard?

[Hofmann]

And how do you define "correct" other than by reference to a standard?

First one must acknowledge that what is standardized isn't necessarily what is correct. Standards, especially those regarding stroke order, are often arbitrarily set. Anyone could create their own standard, like Asahi Shimbun did with their standard characters, regardless of whether or not what they standardize is correct. Then I can say what is correct is what lacks error.

So one might ask how I (or 田蘊章) determine what is correct. We look at examples of the best writing, namely things that people use as models from which to copy when they study calligraphy, e.g. 九成宮醴泉銘, 玄秘塔碑, 多寶塔碑, 神策軍碑, 蘭亭序, 十七帖, etc.. In these models, there are often hints as to what stroke order they used. These can be very obvious in faster styles such as 行書 and 草書. For the case of 母, 田蘊章 has determined that the stroke order used by writers of the best examples of Chinese handwriting is as minsad77's first link describes. Separately from him, I have also determined that stroke order, based on

• 篆書 orientation, where the last stroke spans the character from top to bottom
  
• hints of brush direction in 行書
  
• 草書 stroke order
  
• the above information in characters that contain 母, such as 每
  
• the stroke order of 毋
  

The evidence is overwhelming for the stroke order in minsad77's first link. In contrast, there is no evidence supporting any other stroke order. That is why I deem the stroke order in minsad77's first link to be correct.

From this one can see how arbitrarily some standards were set, and why I encourage people not to confuse what is correct with what is standard.

[Guest realmayo]

I guess also, unless you're writing with a brush, it's worth asking if using the PRC standard makes your writing look any worse from what Hoffman says is correct. Does it even make it look any different?

[Hofmann]

In 楷書, no, but it make it more difficult to write well. In anything where even a few movements of your writing instrument are due to inertia, e.g. 行書 and 草書, it's damned difficult or impossible to write well without following the correct stroke order.

[Guest realmayo]

So there are times when with a ballpoint pen, using the PRC standard takes longer to write than following your standard? I mean, 母 seems if anything faster to write by going < dot, line, dot> than <dot, dot, line>. I guess the fact that a ballpoint dot is vastly more simple to execute than a calligraphy dot may have something to do with it? For me, going <dot, dot, line> means I have to retrace my steps, bring my pen back up, to do the line, which wastes time.

I'm not disagreeing that in the main it's best to follow a standard, just referring to the few examples where the more widely-held standards differ from each other.

EDIT： however, the more 'free' your writing style, ballpoint pen notwithstanding, I can see the two dots first making sense, because the two dots written quickly can be joined to make, effectively, a single vertical stroke.

[Hofmann]

So there are times when with a ballpoint pen, using the PRC standard takes longer to write than following your standard?

Probably, but I've never compared them based on writing speed. In the case of 母, writing 丶一丶 is not faster than 丶丶一, because the distance from the top 丶 to the left side of 一 plus the distance from the right side of 一 to the bottom 丶 is greater than the distance from the top 丶 to the bottom 丶 plus the distance from the bottom dot to the left side of 一. But of course, nobody moves their writing instruments in straight lines between strokes, which brings up another point, and that is when writing 丶一丶 the direction of your writing instrument changes almost completely twice, while when writing 丶丶一 it changes slightly twice. Furthermore, it takes me longer (or it takes more concentration/effort) to write legibly using 丶一丶. Therefore, writing speed doesn't only depend on the distance between strokes but also what your writing instrument does between them and how easy it is to write them in a certain order.

[Jose]

Hofmann, I think your approach is interesting from an academic point of view. It is certainly good to investigate the history of the language and know which character shapes and stroke orders were common in the past and which ones appear to be more recent developments. However, in the end, you're just defining an additional standard based on 田蘊章's work and a keen observation of old calligraphy, and you may be pursuing an ideal that simply doesn't exist. If Chinese people in the 21st century, with unified nationwide textbooks, computerised fonts and all, can't seem to agree on how to write simple characters like 里 or 为, I would expect the phenomenon of alternative stroke orders to have been even more widespread in the past. And in any case, language changes. I don't see why a stroke order should be preferred just because it was used by the calligraphers of past centuries. The character 高 is also commonly written 髙 in calligraphy, but students are always taught to write it in the present standard form. Whether 高 or 髙 is older should be irrelevant for the current student of the language.

From a descriptivist standpoint, I think the only 'correct' answer to the original poster's question is that there are three alternative stroke orders in common use.

1. 乚乛丶丶一. The one prescribed by Taiwan and, according to Hofmann, consistent with tradition.

2. 乚乛丶一丶. The one currently prescribed by Mainland China.

3. 乚乛一丶丶. A stroke order that appears in many older textbooks.

Stroke orders 2 and 3 are both common in Mainland China (as the results of a quick Google search for "母字的筆順" reveal; see here, here, here, or here), whereas stroke order 1 only seems to be common in Taiwan (and maybe Hong Kong?).

[Glenn]

Stroke order 1 is also taught in Japan. http://www.winttk.com/kakijun/2/20222.htm

I don't know about Hong Kong.

[skylee]

I write dot horizontal dot, which is how I was taught.

PS - please see my post #19 below. My original reply in this post was a wrong reply.

[Hofmann]

Hong Kong has 一丶丶.

[minsad77]

Thanks everyone for the helpful replies.

I will write 母 with 丶丶一.

And for the next character which has different "standard" strokes, I will just pick the most convenient one.

[Andy-Zhang]

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E6%AF%8D-order.gif

This one is correct !

[skylee]

I write dot horizontal dot, which is how I was taught.

Sorry I meant to say dot dot horizontal. I don't know why I made a wrong reply. And got two pluses for it.

Sorry. Sorry.