On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, Jon Babcock wrote:

> If the brachymorphic (shortened) forms of hemigrams were introduced as an
> additional, usually optional, attribute of the hemigram notation, then my
> original example, wang4 (forget) and mang2 (busy), would also pose no problem.

Do we consider sequencing to matter? If so, then wang4 'forget' (U+5FD8)
and mang2 'busy' (U+5FD9) can be distinguished without distinguishing full
vs. shortened forms [of the 'heart' element, located at the bottom of
U+5FD8 and on the left side in U+5FD9].

If sequencing is not taken into account, then there are plenty of
characters that will need some other method to distinguish them (see my
"ba" and "jie" examples from an earlier post), perhaps positioning.


I don't quite get the point with 'goose', U+9D5D. Is there a difference in

> meaning when 'avian' (Kangxi #196) is coronary, or aristeric or
> dextral?

It was an earlier observation--now shown to be invalid--that positioning
didn't matter (at least for geese).

> A more serious challenge ... but I'm sure there will be more ... to the idea
> of a hemigramic notation for *any* Chinese characters may be trying to deal
> with characters such as the one Thomas Chan mentioned at URL,
> http://member.nifty.ne.jp/Gat_Tin/kanji/sinji.htm
> 5th down from the top. I'm still trying to get my mind around this one.

I would question whether that character is even part of the same system as
all of the rest that we are dealing with; while its components are the
same, the way it's assembled is not. Vietnamese demotic characters, chu+~
no^m, are of the same system (with a few new components), as are "national
characters" of Japan and Korea (although some of the latter's as used in
Kugyol and other early writing systems may require new components as
well). Zhuang characters (how extensive are they?) also seem to follow
the same rules. On the other hand, the Khitan, Jurchen, and Tangut
characters seem to require much more additional components, and different
manners of construction; one might also say the same of some of the newly
created characters used in post-1950's China.

In addition, I'd also question if it is a character, rather than a symbol.
Do any dictionaries document it? Clearly it's not in any of the huge (and
hopefully comprehensive) dictionaries such as the Chinese _Kangxi Zidian_
(1716) or _Hanyu Da Zidian_ (1986-1990), or the Japanese _Dai Kanwa Jiten_
(1950's?)--aka "Morohashi"--that people consult as a final authority.
However, this is not a perfect rubric by itself, as there are
plenty of characters used in writing Cantonese whose existence is
undeniable, but documented only in specialized dialect dictionaries.
(There are even a few characters for vulgar language, that few authors are
willing to document.) Granted, the above three dictionaries are primarily
concerned with pre-modern Chinese.

Another character we might want to consider is U+56CD. It's reading, xi3,
and meaning, 'double happiness' (referring to marriage), are well-known;
yet, none of the three juggernaut dictionaries above contain an entry for
it! About the only place it really occurs is for decorative purposes like
a wall sign (although I am aware that the title of two movies, from Hong
Kong, contain this character). Is it a character, or a not?

I'd like to conclude by mentioning that there is a dictionary called
_Zhonghua Zihai_ (U+4E2D U+534E U+5B57 U+6D77), published in China in
1994, which is supposed to contain a lot of the religous-use characters of
the type in the URL above. (I have not seen it.) Another place for
similar-looking characters is the _Tong Shu_ (U+901A U+66F8) Chinese
almanac (also known under a few variant names), which one should be able
to get [a 2001 edition] at a Chinese bookstore or grocery in a month or
two, which has some Taoist charms with similar outlandish characters; a
few are excerpted in Martin Palmer's _T'ung Shu: the Ancient Chinese
Almanac_ (Boston: Shambhala, 1986), which contains an explanation and
partial translation of the invariant parts of the almanac.


Thomas Chan
tc31@...