480531170

1309
顧
KO, kaerimiru
look back
L1
21 strokes
KORYOconcern
KAIKOretrospection
KOMONadviser
Seal . Has 103 ‘head’, and 1305
(‘employ’) as phonetic with associated sense
‘twist, turn’, to give ‘turn the head round, look
back’; later, ‘look back’ in figurative sense also.
Mizukami lists what is given as two bronze
equivalents; these are in the highly embellished
‘bird script’ subcategory of bronze script, which
gives individual graphs a delicate, bird-like
aspect. MS1995:v2:1450-51; OT1968:1108;
GY2008:1023.
Mnemonic: EMPLOY HEAD TO LOOK BACK
1310
互
GO, tagai
mutual
L2
4 strokes
SŌGOmutual
GOJOmutual aid
tagaichigaialternately
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Originally,
pictograph of a device for evenly cross-winding
rope or thread, giving rise to extended senses
such as ‘intertwining, mutual’. GY2008:75;
KJ1970:390; OT1968:34. Suggest taking the
graph in association with 21 ‘five’.
Mnemonic: MUTUALITY CAN BE AWKWARD
WITH FIVE (OR THEREABOUTS)
1311
呉
GO, kureru
give, Wu China
L1
7 strokes
GOFUKUdrapery
kureguremoearnestly
kuretedonor
Bronze ; seal ; traditional . Has 22
‘mouth; words, speak’, with (next to) a second
element representing a figure with head
inclined, as in the bronze and seal forms. The
graph is interpreted as originally meaning i]
‘turn away from someone shouting’, giving
‘noisy’ (Ogawa; Schuessler, in similar vein, says
‘to shout’); or ii] ‘words which go against what
is normal’, as the original way of writing 868
‘mistake’ (Katō); or iii] a dancing figure, giving
‘enjoy’ by extension (later written ) (Gu).
Meanings of include its use as the name of
an ancient Chinese state at different periods
(the earliest such being during the Zhou dynasty),
and as the name of a region in ancient
China (Three Kingdoms period). also has
Japanese-only uses. One of these is in the term
Go-on, which refers to a layer of Sino-
Japanese (SJ: see Note below). The graph
(Ch. Wu) was also used to write an old Japanese
word for China (often equated with a region
called Wu in southern China), namely Kure. The
exact derivation of this word Kure is not clear,
but it perhaps reflects the Japanese attempt at
rendering a dialectal form of the Chinese word
written as . Subsequently in Japan, the graph
was borrowed for its sound value to write an
old Japanese verb kuru meaning ‘give’, equivalent
to modern kureru. Note: the Go-on layer of
Sino-Japanese is older than the generally more
familiar Kan-on, which represents the
dominant layer of Sino-Japanese (often popularly
referred to collectively as ‘on readings’).
Go-on has been preserved quite prominently in
Buddhist terms (such as SETSU [not SATSU] in
SESSHŌ ‘taking of life’, and JŌ [not SEI] in
JŌDO-SHŪ ‘Pure Land sect [of Buddhism]’.
This was because the Buddhist priesthood
was resistant to the (at that time) new wave
of pronunciation which was being brought
over from China, centered on the language
of the capital Chang’an, in about the eighth
century. OT1968:171; AS2007:518; KJ1970:394;
GY2008:423. We suggest taking the graph as a
box on a comfortable-looking reclining chair,
the box containing a gift.
Mnemonic: GIFT BOX FROM WU CHINA ON A
CHAIR
The Remaining 1130 Characters 389