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Introduction
The focus of this book is on giving etymologies together with mnemonics for each
of the 2,136 characters that make up the Kaitei Jōyō kanji ‘Revised
General Use Characters’ officially adopted in Japan in 2010, replacing the earlier
Jōyō kanji List of 1981 (1,945 characters). In setting out the etymologies, we need to
go back to the origins of the kanji in China. In consequence, to explain adequately
some of the characters, considerable space is taken up referring to such things as
values, customs, and technology in ancient China, all of which tend to reflect a very
different world from the one we inhabit today.
1 Beginnings of the Chinese Script
Some scholars regard Chinese writing as dating back to long before the Shang Dynasty
(ca. 16th–11th century BC), pointing to marks on pottery, for instance, but
these are no more than isolated examples consisting of one or two signs of typically
abstract shape which cannot be described with confidence as writing as opposed to
something like owners’ marks.
1.1 Oracle Bone Script (Ch. 甲 ⾻⽂ jiaguwen, J. 甲 ⾻⽂ 字
kōkotsu moji)
The earliest stage of Chinese writing (and of the characters to be adopted much later
by the Japanese) widely recognized among scholars is what is known as oracle bone
script, sometimes referred to as OBI (for ‘oracle bone inscriptions’). This dates back
to the later part of the Shang Dynasty.
The oracle bone script is so called because typically it is written on bones that
were the shoulder blades of cattle, or sometimes on the underside of turtle shells.
These were flattish surfaces which were reasonably easy to use for writing. A knifelike
instrument was used to scratch characters or graphs (these two words are used
with the same meaning in this book) on the bone or shell surface, hence the angular
appearance at this stage. In some cases, a text was written first onto the bone with a
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