Radical 8

Radical 8 or radical lid (亠部), whose meaning as an independent word is unknown, but is often interpreted to be a "lid" when used as a radical. Of the 214 Kangxi radicals, Radical 8 is one of 23 which are composed of 2 strokes.

In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 38 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical.

亠 is also the 17th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China.

Evolution

• Small seal script character

Derived characters

Variant forms

There is a difference in Japanese and Chinese in printing typefaces for this radical. Traditionally, a short vertical line on top of the horizontal line was used in printing, while a slanted dash is preferred in handwriting.

The vertical dot form is used in the Kangxi Dictionary, modern Japanese and Korean typefaces. In Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, a slanted dot on top of the horizontal line is the standard form, though the traditional form with a vertical dot is also widely used in Traditional Chinese typefaces and in some cases Simplified Chinese typefaces.

Both forms are acceptable in handwriting in each language.

Literature

• Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1.
• Leyi Li: "Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases". Beijing 1993, ISBN 978-7-5619-0204-2

External links