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72
L4
文
BUN, MON, fumi
writing, text
4 strokes
BUNGAKUliterature
MO(N)JIcharacter
koibumilove-letter
OBI and bronze forms , . Etymology
disputed. These forms are taken by Shirakawa
and Karlgren as person with tattoos, while
Ogawa and Katō take them as a figure wearing
garment with neck. ‘Pattern, writing, text’
may be seen as extended senses if Karlgren
and Shirakawa are followed. SS1984:759;
BK1957:130-1; OT1968:445; KJ1970:218-20.
Mnemonic: A CROSS IS THE LOWEST FORM
OF WRITING: TRY TO TOP IT
73
木
BOKU, MOKU, ki, ko
tree, wood
L5
4 strokes
MOKUYŌbiThursday
kimegrain, texture
kodachi*grove
Based on a pictograph of a tree .
MR2007:333; SS1984:804; QX2000:54;
KJ1970:955.
Mnemonic: TREE WITH SWEEPING BRANCHES
– LOOKS LIKE GOOD WOOD
74
L5
本
HON, moto
root, book, true, main,
this, cylinder-counter
5 strokes
NIHON/NIPPONJapan
HONyabookshop
HONSHAthis/head office
Based on pictograph of tree with roots , the
latter indicated later by the simple addition of
a stroke near the base, to show root or stem
below ground level. Norman observes – with
reference to Chinese – that it “is not entirely
clear how a word originally meaning ‘root’ could
75
L5
名
MEI, MYŌ, na
name, fame
6 strokes
YŪMEIfamous
MYŌJIsurname
namaename
Various interpretations. Early form . May well
be a combination of / 22 ‘mouth, say’, and
46 ‘crescent moon’ – used here as substitute
for another graph meaning ‘shout, call out’
come to be used as a measure for books”, but
this may be explained as an extended meaning
‘stem’, in that traditionally in China and Japan
books were in cylindrical rolls, i.e., a stem-like
shape. In China, the cylindrical roll for books
started to change to a folded-page format
from about the 9th century AD. Note also that
in English there is a close link between trees
and books: ‘book’, ‘bark’, ‘beech’, and ‘birch’,
the bark once having been used for writing
on. SS1984:807; QX2000:183; JN1988:116;
KJ1970:866; TT1962:153.
Mnemonic: TREE WITH ONE MAIN ROOT
BELOW GROUND
(Mizukami, Yamada). Shirakawa, however, takes
the earliest forms (bronze) as depicting meat
over a ritual vessel, used in the ancient naming
ceremony for an infant when it reached three
months. If we follow Shirakawa, most OBI and
bronze occurrences of represent not ‘mouth’
but specifically ‘prayer receptacle’, but this is
very much a minority view. MS1995:v1:214-5;
YK1976:467; SS1984:816-7.
Mnemonic: MOUTH CALLS FAMOUS NAME
UNDER A CRESCENT MOON
64 The 80 First Grade Characters