480531170

55
L5
村
SON, mura
village
7 strokes
SONCHŌ village head
NŌSON farming village
murabito villager(s)
Etymology unclear. Seems a late graph, not
in Shuowen dictionary of ca.100AD. Ogawa
treats it as variant of CO graph ‘lacquer tree’
which was used phonetically in the sense of
‘village’ in place of another graph for ’village’,
, which may be taken provisionally as ()
‘settlement, village’ (see 376), and 1806
‘accumulate, stay’ as semantic and phonetic.
OT1968:490-91; KJ1985:311. Use 920 ‘measure’
and 73 ‘tree’ for mnemonic.
Mnemonic: MEASURE TREES TO BUILD A
VILLAGE
56
L5
大
DAI, TAI, kii, -
big
3 strokes
TAIKAI assembly
DAIGAKU university
ōgoe loud voice
Based on a pictograph of a mature person or
one with arms and legs outstretched , used
in an extended sense to mean ‘big’. SS1984:570;
QX2000:4; KJ1970:724-5.
Mnemonic: PERSON SPREADS ARMS AND
LEGS TO LOOK BIG
57
L5
男
DAN, NAN, otoko
man, male
7 strokes
DANSHI boy
CHŌNAN eldest son
otokogi gallantry
OBI ; made up of 63 ‘field’ and 78
‘strength’ . The latter may at one stage have
represented a plow, but most early forms show
an arm and field , associated with males
58
竹
CHIKU, take
bamboo
L 3
6 strokes
BAKUCHIKUfirecracker
takeumastilts
takeyabubamboo grove
working in the fields. Other analyses are possible:
Yamada and Katō, for example, take
as phonetic, with an associated sense ‘endure’,
while Tōdō includes the whole graph in his
word-family meaning ‘bring in’, on the basis that
traditionally China was a matriarchal society
in which women brought men into the family
through marriage. SS1984:584-5; GY2008:435;
YK1976:352-3; TA1965:800-04; KJ1985:415.
Mnemonic: MAN PROVIDES STRENGTH IN
FIELD
Often seen as bamboo segments, which is a
good mnemonic but incorrect. OBI shows it
to be based on a pictograph of a bamboo plant,
which Mizukami and Katō identify as a low,
striped variety. Later used for bamboo in general.
In compound graphs, . MS1995:v2:986-7;
MR2007:307; KJ1970:694.
Mnemonic: TWO BAMBOO SEGMENTS
60 The 80 First Grade Characters