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KE TSU
a na
Glyph elements [ Toggle Font ]
「Deliberately」with「divided, eight」as a CAVITY, INSERTION POINT, and (coincidentally?) the glyph meaning 'sticky blob, jism splat' also has eight portions: 米 (a 'wood emission').
After caves became too crowded, archeologists tell us that early Chinese and Japanese (during the Jōmon era) lived in PITS, a HOLE that was dug into soil or a hillside (⻖) with soil walls that was in later times covered with a roof, as depicted by this glyph. Scorpions also excavate their homes and live in spiralling burrows underground, similar to earlier humans. The partially underground pits for humans provided some protection from storms, some non-human animals, and a moderated temperature (cooler in summer, warmer in winter):
「They practiced a rudimentary form of agriculture and lived in caves and later in groups of either shallow pit dwellings or above-ground houses, leaving rich middens for modern archaeological study…. The Early Jōmon is the first stage in the Jōmon era of Japanese pre-history. The Jōmon period itself ranged from 10,000 to 300 BC, with the first stage lasting from 4000 to 3000 BC. The Early Jōmon is characterized by the high sea level (2 to 3 meters higher than the modern day) and a significant population increase. This period saw a rise in complexity in the design of pit houses [such as the addition of a thatched roof and lined walls], the most commonly used method of housing at the time.」
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dmon_period 2012-07-02 ]
Significantly, this glyph may also be drawn as six (六) with an emphasis marker at each end of the「rod」element, suggestive of 'all in, babe' and similar hoots.
External source definitions …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may include extended definitions, euphemisms, and mnemonics)
Chinese: cave; cavity; hole; acupuncture point
Japanese EDRDG: hole, aperture, slit, cave, den
Unihan extended: cave, den, hole
Used within names (nanori)
けな ・ しし ・ な
Always keep in mind that these glyphs most likely were originally designed by groups of clever old men as vulgar riddles for their own entertainment
(see 籒 for that),
representing Chinese society many thousands of years ago, but intended NOT as a written or spoken language when created.
If these glyphs had been intended for language use, the sages could not have possibly designed a worse system!
Is it truly possible that all these glyphs started out as off-color jokes and puzzles?
Yes! It is, and often with multiple correct answers to each riddle, the same as is true today.
Sex had no shame in ancient China.
Why would it?
But, have there been necessary rewrites and altered explanations of the original elemental meanings over the centuries?
No one is suggesting these glyphs depict contemporary life in China, Japan, or anywhere else.
This site describes glyph meanings, not people.
These glyphs however, describe many and various things, including people, long before there were any notions of becoming politically incorrect.
The question to be answered is, should these glyphs continue being used, by anyone, anywhere, for expressing language?
(More...)
Despite how seemingly bad our human existence is today, do you actually believe that the so-called good old days were any better?
Or could they have been worse?
By the way, with a limited number of the same elements used by the sages again and again to form these glyphs,
you should expect to find the same explanations again and again, as tedious as that may become, and as an inherent trait of any lexicon.
This site explains multiple meanings of glyphs ignored or censored by other sources, generally as being too embarrassing to admit today.
Primal elements
Japanese vocabulary: 153 entries
Chinese usage: 44 entries
Used in glyphs (or, see also): 93 entries
Related glyphs [ Toggle font ]
Similar glyphs with related meanings: 22 entries
- Glyph.00174
- Strokes: 05
- jlpt-N2 grade_06
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This publication has included material from the MDBG free online English to Chinese dictionary files in accordance with the license provisions of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
This publication has included material from the JMdict (EDICT, etc.) dictionary files in accordance with the license provisions of the Electronic Dictionaries Research Group.
This publication has included material from the Unicode Character Database. Copyright © 1991-2016 Unicode, Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed under these Terms of Use.