ABOUT KANJI
Part 2
J. Belote 2001
(last modified September 9, 2002)
About Kanji Part 1, About Kanji Part 2, About Kanji Part 3, More on Radicals,
Made-in-Japan Kanji, De/Reconstructing Poetry, Bibliography/Links,
WRITING KANJI
Unless there is a specific reason (e.g. esthetic) to do
otherwise kanji--however simple or complex--are all written in
same-sized "boxes"--most commonly, squares: 
In writing text, kanji may be arranged in vertical or horizontal rows. The most common traditional form is to write them in vertical rows which are read from top to bottom and right to left. Most books and magazines, then, are also paged from right to left, with the cover being on the right. But kanji are also frequently written in horizontal rows, in which case they are written and read from left to right. These two patterns are illustrated below:
An exception to the two patterns noted above may be observed
on the starboard bows of boats and ships. On that side, names
are written and read horizontally, and read from right to left
as illustrated below:
(P.S. After putting this on the web I was pleased to see that on the bow of the model of a Japanese ship on display at the Lake Superior Marine Museum in Duluth, Minnesota, the ship's name was presented as indicated in the figure above.)
PUTTING A KANJI TOGETHER
Kanji are not made up of a random collection of strokes. Most consist of an element or elements (patterns of strokes) that recur in many other kanji and that may denote semantic fields/meaning connotations and/or sounds.
There is a traditional set of 214 stroke patterns in Chinese and Japanese that are called "radicals." Most have "meanings" when standing alone as characters.
Below is a sampling of radicals. In the top line, Fig. 1.a - 1.l, the radicals take their form as complete, independent kanji (with their meanings provided); in the bottom two lines (Fig. 1.ff - 1.lll) radicals which have a very different form when they make up only a part of a kanji are given. Thus, for example, the radical form for grass/plants (Fig. 1.gg) when used as a part of a kanji could hardly be recognized as a derivative of its form as an independent kanji (Fig. 1.g)--in which form it no longer exists in Japanese.
And here is a sampling of kanji in which these radicals occur:
Radicals may be quite simple, consisting of only one stroke
as in Fig. 1.a (one), or much more complex,
consisting of many more, as in Fig. 1.e (horse) which has
10 strokes. When radicals and other elements are combined in a
single kanji, that kanji most often
is made up of less than 20 strokes. However, at least one Chinese
character (in non-general use in Kanji as well) has a stroke count
of 48. It looks something like this,
,
and its meaning is given in Chinese (on this external web
site ) as "the appearance of a dragon walking" and
in Japanese as "dragons moving" (Nelson).
Note that its key radical, 
("dragon"),
contains 16 strokes and occurs three times--at the top of the
kanji and at the left and right of the bottom half. Click here
for the site where this, and many thousands of other characters/kanji
may be found. (In Mandarin Chinese a character with 64 strokes
containins the dragon radical four times--twice on top and twice
on the bottom, and meansappropriately enough? "verbose"
[DeFrancis 1984:75].)
The basic form of the radical may be stretched and/or squashed in order to fit into a more complex kanji as in Fig. 1.jj & 1.jjj (human being)" and Fig. 1.kk and 1.kkk (mountain) and Fig. 1.ll (the first alternative form of heart); or it may be more radically altered as in Fig. 1.ff (movement), Fig. 1.gg (plants), Fig. 1.hh (mound), Fig. 1.ii (village), and the second alternative, Fig. 1.lll, to heart (see also, the radical "water" in the section on Semantic Fields).
Note that Fig. 1.hh (mound) and Fig. 1.ii (village) are identical in form. The difference is that Fig. 1.hh is always on the left side of the kanji of which it is the key radical (see Fig. 2.h and Fig. 2hh), and Fig. 1.ii is always on the right (see Fig. 2.i and Fig. 2.ii).
All kanji have (or did have earlier in their development) at least one of the 214 forms recognized as radicals. Some kanji may contain three or four. Take, for example, the kanji for "orchid" (Fig. 2.gg) (see also the Poetry page in which there is a wildly interpretive deconstruction and reconstruction of the kanji for "poetry").
"Orchid" appears to be made up of four radicals, Fig. 3.b, Fig. 3.c, Fig. 3.d and Fig. 3.e (all of which are presented in Fig. 1). Only one, Fig. 3.b (grass/plant), is a key radical in the orchid kanji.
Note that two of the radicals, tree/wood (Fig. 3.dd) and
sun/day (Fig. 3.ee) are used to construct "east" (Fig.
3.ff). And this makes for a nice story: the sun is rising behind
a tree--in the east. Thus the meaning of the character. But, as
Henshall (p.52) points
out, the origins of the kanji may be related instead to an early
Chinese character for a "tied sack with a pole thrust through
to facilitate carrying" and not to any idea about where the
sun rises relative to trees. No doubt the first story
about sun rises and trees facilitates the memorization of the
kanji--so don't forget it! Or maybe you should
forget it--at least if you are primarily interested in learning
mainland Chinese usage. In that area character simplification
has turned 
into 
. So much for
the sun, not to mention tied sacks!
For more on the use of radicals in kanji go to More on Radicals
Can the same elements be combined in different ways to make kanji with different meanings?
Yes! For example, variants of a single radical can
can combine with another element to form different kanji.
E.g.: 
Or, a "non-variant" radical can combined in different
ways with another element to form different kanji with different
meanings.
E.g.: 
and 
Of course nothing in the kanji/character system is quite so "simple. In some cases, elements may be combined to create different kanji which, however, have the same sound and meaning. For example, distinct variants of the same radical may be combined with the same element, in the same position to form variant kanji forms which share the same sound and meaning. A quick review of Nelson shows this to be quite common with the radical "showing."
E.g.: 
Now that this has been clarified (it is to be hoped) an
annoying complication noted above needs to be elaborated on a
bit here. Although kanji and characters in Japan and China have
been essentially identical in the past, in more recent years there
has been greater divergence. The People's Republic of China, for
example, has engaged in a process of simplification of some of
the characters in the writing system (Tiawan, Hong Kong, overseas
Chinese communities and Japan have not generally gone along with
this process). This is in addition to variations mentioned above,
and some Japanese tinkering with their kanji system, especially
after the Second World War. Without getting into details at this
time, the point to be made is this: if one learns a particular
kanji for a particular concept there is no guarantee that it will
be recognizable in a mainland Chinese character context. There
seem to be fewer differences between kanji on the one hand, and
Tiawan/Hong Kong character systems on the other--but there are
some. A brief illustration:
These are all essentially the same character/kanji and all
contain the semantic field having to do with wide, spread out,
extended, spacious. The first is the more traditional form
in both Japan and China; the second is a Japanese variant, and
the third is the new, simplified form used only in the People's
Republic of China. However, even currently in the People's Republic,
the first (traditional) form is used by some for place names such
as Guangzou (Canton) and Guangdong (the province
in which Canton is located). In Japan, for most purposes, only
the second one is normally used, as in Hiroshima. In Taiwan
the first form is still most commonly used.
Halpern presents a list of 386 variant or nonstandard forms of kanji. He notes that these are essential "for reading prewar publications, classical literature, and proper names [in current use]" (Henshall 906-909).
So ...
Radicals have two major functions in the kanji system.
1.] The radical part of a kanji sometimes gives a clue as to the semantic field covered by the kanji (see the section on Semantic Fields).
2.] The radical is commonly used as the first element considered in ordering the location of kanji in dictionaries. Thus, some knowledge of radicals is generally an essential aid to finding kanji in dictionaries (the authors of some books on the subject suggest learning all 214 radicals early in one's kanji-learning career).
A problem is that only one radical is considered THE radical for any particular kanji. That is, a kanji may contain three or four radicals, but only one of them is "key" in serving those purposes. Other radicals or non-radical elements in the kanji may add hints as to either either meaning or sound or both. When sound is attributed to a non-key radical or other set of elements in a kanji, it may be called a "phonetic" (Henshall and Harbaugh provide information on the phonetic elements of most of the kanji/characters in their books).
So ...where a kanji contains more than one radical, which one is the key radical? Sorry, there is no simple rule on this matter. There are sets of rules which cover most cases but they will not be presented here. As illustrated in Fig. 2, among other places, the key radical may be located at the top or bottom, or on the left or right side of its kanji, or partially surrounding it (among other places).
Let us suppose you have figured out the key radical (well, you can proceed by trial and error, it's just gonna take a bit longer). Now what?
There is no "alphabet" inherent in kanji or characters which determines their order of presentation in a bilingual dictionary. Thus the kanji or characters in Japanese-English or Chinese-English dictionaries may be ordered in a variety of ways: according to frequency of use; according to order of learning in the school system of an area (e.g Henshall); according to an alphabetization of their sounds in a Romanized form (e.g. Meyer & Wempe, Cowles, Oxford, Xinhua); according to number of strokes; according to a newly devised system of categorization which aids in looking them up (e.g. Halpern and Harbaugh); according to a standard ordering of radicals and then by residual stroke numbers (e.g. Choy).
Almost all such dictionaries include one or more indexes
which aid in finding kanji or characters. And one option that
most include is an index based on a standard ordering of radicals
plus residual stroke numbers. This is how you use that
index. First, determine the number of strokes in the key radical.
Oops! How do you determine stroke numbers? First, strokes reflect
where (in writing by hand) a brush or pen makes a continuous contact
with the writing surface in standard writing forms (but not in
some more elaborate forms). Generally, any single straight or
slightly curving line is made with one stroke. But some strokes
"turn a corner" (or two) without a lifting of the brush
or pen; here are several examples: 
.
In the figure all the lines in red are single strokes. Thus the
first kanji has two complex strokes (black) and six simple strokes
(red lines) for a total of eight.
Once the strokes in the radical are determined go to the section of the index with radicals with that number of strokes. Then count the "residual" strokes in the kanji/character--that is, how many strokes are left in the kanji after subtracting the number of strokes in the radical. In the "orchid" kanji above, the total number of strokes is nineteen. The key radical (grass/plant) has three strokes. The rest of the kanji has sixteen strokes. This is the residual number.
But in Fig 1 note that the full form of the grass/plant radical has six strokes while its common abbreviated form (as it exists on top or "orchid," for example) has only three. That kanji or character may be listed, however, under the full form count (6). Hey, don't blame me--I didn't make this up! Some, but not all, indexes, will direct you to the correct location of the radical group by listing the "abbreviated" form under its actual stroke number. ... Good hunting!
P.S. You can try this radical-plus-residual-strokes method by going to http://www.chinalanguage.com/CCDICT/index.html and clicking on "BUSHOU INDEX." And you can observe an animation of brush strokes used in writing kanji by checking out http://member.aol.com/writejapan/.
