Radical 194 or radical ghost () meaning "
ghost
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...
" or "
demon
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, ani ...
" is one of the 8
Kangxi radical
The 214 Kangxi radicals (), also known as the Zihui radicals, form a system of radicals () of Chinese characters.
The radicals are numbered in stroke count order. They are the most popular system of radicals for dictionaries that order Traditi ...
s (214 radicals in total) composed of 10
strokes.
(9 strokes in Simplified Chinese) is also the 184th indexing component in the ''
Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components'' predominantly adopted by
Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in
mainland China.
Evolution
File:鬼-oracle.svg, Oracle bone script
Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or turtle plastrons used in pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millennium BC, and is the earliest kno ...
character
File:鬼-bronze.svg, Bronze script
Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as ''zhōng'' bells and '' dǐng'' tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd mi ...
character
File:鬼-bigseal.svg, Large seal script character
File:鬼-seal.svg, Small seal script
The small seal script (), or Qin script (, ''Qínzhuàn''), is an archaic form of Chinese calligraphy. It was standardized and promulgated as a national standard by the government of Qin Shi Huang, the founder of the Chinese Qin dynasty.
Name ...
character
The character is historically composed of "legs", representing a large demon's head and a curl looking similar to taken to represent a swirl of vapour, or a demon's tail.
The character can be traced to the
oracle bone script
Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or turtle plastrons used in pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millennium BC, and is the earliest kno ...
, where it depicts a man kneeling on a monster head.
Derived characters
Most of the characters derived from the radical have meanings related to ghosts or souls, including "devil, demon", "black magic", "nightmare", "soul". In some signs, however, the radical is present purely as a phonetic marker, for example in , the
State of Wei during the
Spring and Autumn period
The Spring and Autumn period was a period in Chinese history from approximately 770 to 476 BC (or according to some authorities until 403 BC) which corresponds roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou period. The period's name derives fr ...
.
Variant forms
Literature
*
*Li, Leyi: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993,
*Harbaugh, Rick, ''Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary'', Yale University Press (1998),
*Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth (江伊莉), 甲骨文的“鬼”与假面具 (The Gui-Spirit in Oracle Bone Inscriptions), International Conference Celebrating the 95th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions", Anyang, China, 1994.
See also
*
Ghosts in Chinese culture
*
Oni
External links
Unihan Database - U+9B3C
{{Simplified Chinese radicals
194
Year 194 ( CXCIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Septimius and Septimius (or, less frequently, year 947 '' Ab urbe ...
184
__NOTOC__
Year 184 ( CLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Eggius and Aelianus (or, less frequently, year 937 ''Ab ...