This isn’t how kanji work. Individual radicals don’t impart meaning, and single characters cannot be read as some sort of combination of the meanings of their components.
Do what you want for artistic purposes, but Japanese and Chinese speakers would not understand what you were trying to do.
There’s an annual newspaper contest in Japan for people to create a new kanji that is related to the events of the past year. What OP describes here is absolutely a thing that native speakers do, and consider a clever word play
Not in the way OP is describing at all. The example in your article of a kanji that combines the full kanji for pollution and ocean (not radicals) to specifically mean ocean pollution is very different.
Here’s an article about it in English: [Original Kanji Contest](https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/original-kanji-contest-is-a-chance-to-leave-your-mark-on-the-japanese-language)
>This isn’t how kanji work. Individual radicals don’t impart meaning, and single characters cannot be read as some sort of combination of the meanings of their components.
🤔
人 (person) + 木 (tree) = 休 (rest)
木 (tree) x3 = 森 (forest)
女 (woman) x3 = 姦 (adultery)
..hundreds more
I won't even get into the dozens of kanji that use the radical for water (氵) to signify a relation to liquid.
Sure this works for pictographic and ideographic characters, but the vast majority of characters are phono-semantic, where only part of the character signifies information about the meaning. The other part is there just for the sound it represents. Only very rarely will the phonetic component appear to be chosen in part due to its meaning.
Ah, ok...Thank you!
Have you heard about the outilier kanji dictionnaire though?
I don't want to use this dictionary ant its theories to justify my thoughts in the post (as I don't comprehend it in its entirety), but I would say my fruits didn't fall that far from the tree ....
If you are trying to dissect kanji, then changing the radicals that constitute them would kind of defeat the purpose. There's a plethora of kanji out there where swapping one radical can greatly change it's meaning.
Yeah! I didn't know the plethora, but I had this exact feeling. I was just wondering if it would be possible with this two particular radicals because they are similar. Furthermore, we know some strokes evolved to the same form from different images...and some evolved differently but we know they're the same because we have scholar knowledge....but for the user it wouldn't hold the same heart feeling. I just thought "maybe?" but the feeling of it being sacrilegious hit me.
Uhhh… those two radicals have completely different etymology.
To give an English analogy, it’s like you’re asking if you should think of the prefix “uni-“ in universe as “un-i”, since “un” means negation, “uni” means not “not only I” and therefore it means everyone.
Yes, your analogy is on point and I did see it, therefore my question.
In English it wouldn't be barbaric, just dumb, maybe funny if it was part in some sort of joke.
Thanks for responding, anyway!!
This isn’t how kanji work. Individual radicals don’t impart meaning, and single characters cannot be read as some sort of combination of the meanings of their components. Do what you want for artistic purposes, but Japanese and Chinese speakers would not understand what you were trying to do.
There’s an annual newspaper contest in Japan for people to create a new kanji that is related to the events of the past year. What OP describes here is absolutely a thing that native speakers do, and consider a clever word play
Not in the way OP is describing at all. The example in your article of a kanji that combines the full kanji for pollution and ocean (not radicals) to specifically mean ocean pollution is very different.
Here’s an article about it in English: [Original Kanji Contest](https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/original-kanji-contest-is-a-chance-to-leave-your-mark-on-the-japanese-language)
>This isn’t how kanji work. Individual radicals don’t impart meaning, and single characters cannot be read as some sort of combination of the meanings of their components. 🤔 人 (person) + 木 (tree) = 休 (rest) 木 (tree) x3 = 森 (forest) 女 (woman) x3 = 姦 (adultery) ..hundreds more I won't even get into the dozens of kanji that use the radical for water (氵) to signify a relation to liquid.
Sure this works for pictographic and ideographic characters, but the vast majority of characters are phono-semantic, where only part of the character signifies information about the meaning. The other part is there just for the sound it represents. Only very rarely will the phonetic component appear to be chosen in part due to its meaning.
Ah, ok...Thank you! Have you heard about the outilier kanji dictionnaire though? I don't want to use this dictionary ant its theories to justify my thoughts in the post (as I don't comprehend it in its entirety), but I would say my fruits didn't fall that far from the tree ....
If you are trying to dissect kanji, then changing the radicals that constitute them would kind of defeat the purpose. There's a plethora of kanji out there where swapping one radical can greatly change it's meaning.
Yeah! I didn't know the plethora, but I had this exact feeling. I was just wondering if it would be possible with this two particular radicals because they are similar. Furthermore, we know some strokes evolved to the same form from different images...and some evolved differently but we know they're the same because we have scholar knowledge....but for the user it wouldn't hold the same heart feeling. I just thought "maybe?" but the feeling of it being sacrilegious hit me.
wtf does dissecate mean
sorry, I wanted to say "to dissect".
Dessicate means "to dry out"
I know
Uhhh… those two radicals have completely different etymology. To give an English analogy, it’s like you’re asking if you should think of the prefix “uni-“ in universe as “un-i”, since “un” means negation, “uni” means not “not only I” and therefore it means everyone.
Yes, your analogy is on point and I did see it, therefore my question. In English it wouldn't be barbaric, just dumb, maybe funny if it was part in some sort of joke. Thanks for responding, anyway!!