Radical 12 or radical eight (), meaning '' eight'' or ''all'', is one of 23 of the 214

Kangxi radical The ''Kangxi'' radicals (), also known as ''Zihui'' radicals, are a set of 214 Chinese character radicals, radicals that were collated in the 18th-century ''Kangxi Dictionary'' to aid categorization of Chinese characters. They are primarily sor ...

s that are composed of two

strokes Stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop ...

. "八" is two bent lines that signal '' divide''. Eight is the single-digit number that can be divided by two the greatest number of times. In the ''

Kangxi Dictionary The ''Kangxi Dictionary'' () is a Chinese dictionary published in 1716 during the High Qing, considered from the time of its publishing until the early 20th century to be the most authoritative reference for written Chinese characters. Wanting ...

'', there are 44 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this

radical Radical (from Latin: ', root) may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Classical radicalism, the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and Latin America in the 19th century *Radical politics ...

. is also the 11th indexing component in the ''

Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components ''The Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components'' () is a lexicography, lexicographic tool used to order the Chinese characters in mainland China. The specification is also known as GF 0011-2009. In China's normative documents, "radical" is ...

'' predominantly adopted by

Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one that is simpler (usually shorter), according to a well-founded ordering. Examples include: ...

dictionaries published in

mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

. is an associated indexing component affiliated to the principal component .

Evolution

File:八-oracle.svg,

Oracle bone script Oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Inscriptions were made by carving characters into oracle bones, usually either the shoulder bones of oxen or the plastrons of turtl ...

character File:八-bronze.svg,

Bronze script Chinese bronze inscriptions, also referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, comprise Chinese writing made in several styles on ritual bronzes mainly during the Late Shang dynasty () and Western Zhou dynasty (771 BC). Types of bron ...

character File:八-bigseal.svg,

Large seal script The term large seal script traditionally refers to written Chinese dating from before the Qin dynasty—now used either narrowly to the writing of the Western and early Eastern Zhou dynasty (403 BCE), or more broadly to also include the ...

character File:八-seal.svg,

Small seal script The small seal script is an archaic script style of written Chinese. It developed within the state of Qin during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771–256 BC), and was then promulgated across China in order to replace script varieties used i ...

character

Derived characters

Variant forms

There is a design nuance in different printing typefaces for this radical. In the ''

'' and in Korean hanja, there is a short horizontal line at the beginning of the character's second stroke. This short line does not exist in most

fonts used in

, except for a few cases like the character as in the

Emblem An emblem is an abstract art, abstract or representational pictorial image that represents a concept, like a moral truth, or an allegory, or a person, like a monarch or saint. Emblems vs. symbols Although the words ''emblem'' and ''symbol'' ...

of the

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the military of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). It consists of four Military branch, services—People's Liberation Army Ground Force, Ground Force, People's ...

. It exists in most but not all

Traditional Chinese A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examp ...

fonts. In Japanese typeface, the presence of the short line depends on each typeface's design. The short horizontal line exists only in printing typeface, not in any handwriting form.

Literature

* *Leyi Li: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, * KangXi:
page 126
character 26 * Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 1450 * Dae Jaweon: page 274, character 13 * Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 1, page 241, character 3

External links

Unihan data for U+516B
{{Simplified Chinese radicals

012 012 may refer to: * Tyrrell 012, a Formula One racing car * The dialing code for Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive br ...

011