i.e. silk fabric woven with glossed thread. The meaning was then modified from ‘work/process silk thread’ to ‘attain skill in a task, practice’. KJ1970:648; MS1995:v1:658-9; YK1976:504-5; OT1968:784. We suggest taking the right-hand element as 東 201 ‘east’.
Mnemonic: REFINED THREADS FROM THE EAST
439
L3
路
RO, -ji
road, route
13 strokes
道路 DŌRO road
線路 SENRO rail track
旅路 tabiji journey
Bronze ; seal . Has 足 54 ‘foot’, and 各 462 (originally ‘movement’, now meaning ‘each’) as phonetic with associated sense ‘tread’ (Mizukami also lists alternative sense ‘link, join’), to give ‘[place] where people tread with their feet’, i.e. ‘path, road’. MS1995:v2:1262-3; KJ1970:190-91; YK1976:505.
Mnemonic: EACH FOOT FOLLOWS SAME ROAD, SAME ROUTE
440
L3
和
WA, O, yawaragu, nagoyaka
Japan, peace, soft
8 strokes
平和 HEIWA peace
大和 Yamato* Japan
和食 WASHOKU Japanese food
Bronze ; seal . Has 口 22 ‘mouth’, and 禾 87 (‘rice/grain plant’) as phonetic with associated sense ‘add’; giving ‘one voice is added to another’. ‘Soften, be calmed down’ are extended meanings (Katō, Mizukami, Yamada). The additional meaning ‘Japan’ came about as a substitute initiated by the Japanese themselves to replace an earlier, less flattering graph for Japan used in early Chinese histories such as Wei Zhi ‘History of the Wei [Kingdom]’, namely 倭 (SJ WA), which means ‘submissive’, and according to some scholars, ‘dwarfs’. KJ1970:306; MS1995:222-3; YK1976:508-9; OT1968:178.
Mnemonic: SOFT RICE FOR THE MOUTH IN PEACEFUL JAPAN
THE 200 FOURTH GRADE CHARACTERS
441
L3
愛
AI
love
13 strokes
愛情 AIJŌ love
母性愛 BOSEIAI maternal love
愛国者 AIKOKUSHA patriot
Seal ; traditional ; late graph (Shuowen). Views vary. There are several complicating factors with the etymology of this graph, explained below. Analyzed by Yamada as 夊 in line with the seal form (‘walk slowly, drag feet’ [determinative 35; see Appendix]), with (an obsolete graph meaning ‘favor, feel compassion’) as phonetic with associated sense ‘by stealth’, to give overall meaning ‘walk stealthily’; Katō sees this tentatively as the possible meaning also. Both scholars regard ‘love’ as a loan usage. Mizukami notes an alternative analysis: 心 164 ‘heart, mind’ with 夂 ‘descending foot’ (determinative 34) and 旡 (originally, pictograph of person who has eaten till full) ‘be full; stick in the throat’; overall meaning is ‘difficult to move forward with heart full of anguish’, and ‘love’ as loan usage. Note this analysis has 夂 ‘descending foot’, but treats as meaning 夊 ‘walk slowly’. Morohashi quotes the voluminous 17th century dictionary Zhengzitong in treating as the original way of writing 愛. He makes no mention of loan usage for ‘love’, though it would appear to be valid to take ‘love’ as an extension of ‘favor, feel compassion’, the original meaning of . YK1976:49; KJ1970:1-2; MT1989:v4:980, 1123; MS1995:v1:513-4. Note: for more on 夂 and 夊 see Appendix. We suggest taking 夂 as crossed legs, 爫 1739 as ‘hand’, 冖 as cover, and 心 164 ‘heart’.
Mnemonic: SIT CROSS-LEGGED, HAND COVERING HEART, IN LOVE
442
L3
案
AN
plan, concern, table
10 strokes
提案 TEIAN plan
案外 ANGAI unexpectedly
案内 ANNAI guidance
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has 木 73 ‘tree, wood’, and 安 242 (‘relax’) as phonetic with associated sense ‘place, put’, to represent a small table on which tableware and food were put. Meanings such as ‘investigate’, ‘consider’, ‘plan’ are loan usages (Yamada). Art dating back to the Shang Dynasty shows that low tables were in use in China at that period already. YK1976:51; OT1968:501.
Mnemonic: PLAN TO RELAX AT WOODEN TABLE
443
L4
以
I, motte
start point, use, means, because
5 strokes
以下 IKA below
以内 INAI within
以外 IGAI outside, except
OBI forms , ; seal forms , . Interpretations diverge radically. The first OBI form here is taken in one view as consisting of 人 41 ‘person’, combining with a second element as semantic and phonetic meaning‘plow’, to give overall meaning ‘person with plow, farmer’ (Yamada; Katō is in broad agreement). Mizukami takes the second OBI form as instead corresponding to later 厶 NJK the ancestral form of 厶 (NJK ‘I/me’) meaning ‘enclose and make one’s own’ (later 私 887). Gu, in contrast, working on the basis of the second OBI form above, interprets it as a fetus about to be born, and takes the more complex graph with 人 – which he recognizes as having been added only at the bronze form – as being for emphasis. The above interpretations can only be regarded as very tentative, as views on the etymology of 以 vary so much. The first OBI is listed by Matsumaru as corresponding – in the view of various scholars – to one of a range of later graphs, among them 以, 勹 ‘enclose’ (determinative no. 20) and 氐 (CO, possible original meaning [disputed]: ‘base of small hill’ or ‘spoon touching bottom of plate’, giving ‘down low’ or ‘scrape’). According to Schuessler, 以 was used in OBI texts with the meaning ‘to take’ (e.g. prisoners), and in bronze texts for ‘use, employ, in order to’. YK1976:51-2; MS1995:188-90;
