Login
Welcome! Introduction
Glyphs missing from your font set may appear strange, or not at all. We recommend enabling East Asian language support.
KA N ・ KE N ・ SE N
ku shi ・ tsu ra nu ku
Glyph elements [ Toggle Font ]
Some have insisted that this glyph can only be referring to SKEWERED MEAT being heated, but if so, one cannot deny these elements are then「multiple orifices pierced with rod」one after the other, obviously while sizzling, such as might be found skewered and in heat cooking on a spit (popping with bursts of burning hot fluids emanating from the meat chunks)…see Used-In glyphs of a 'chronically ill patient with fever' (患), 'unknown source, indecipherable' (漶), 'earn a profit while enjoying yourself' (贃).
External source-given meanings, while considering how a feudal lord would have probably behaved within his harem of concubines, lead one to conclude this glyph is most likely intended as two connected (中) elements as they would begin to form a BUNCHED CLUSTER (束), or, MOVE FROM ONE TO THE NEXT. Certainly, other animal primates, elephants, bears, moose, dolphins, lions, horses, gorillas and many other species in addition to human feudal lords behave exactly in this manner. Perhaps an ordinary male without a harem might CONSPIRE to behave similarly, if at all possible, STRINGING TOGETHER, 'skewering pieces of meat.'
Interestingly, this glyph also included one's RELATIVES in the old days as a fairly clear reference either to incest, or to cannibalism, or to both perhaps, but today that may include someone asking around for a loan among extended family members. The English words cluster and clyster both formerly referred to enemata anal irrigation: Middle English clister, from Old French clistere, from Latin clyster, from Greek klustēr, kluzein, to wash out [ https://www.thefreedictionary.com/clyster 2015-09-04 ]
External source definitions …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may include extended definitions, euphemisms, and mnemonics)
Chinese: to string together; to mix up; to conspire; to rove; to make a swift or abrupt linear movement (like a bead on an abacus); to move across; bunch or cluster; string (computing); classifier for rows or strings
Japanese EDRDG: shish kebab, spit, skewer
Unihan extended: string; relatives; conspire
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: 22 entries
Chinese usage: 54 entries
Used in glyphs (or, see also): 33 entries
Related glyphs [ Toggle font ]
Similar glyphs with related meanings: 54 entries
- Glyph.01074
- Strokes: 07
- grade_08
Agree? Disagree? Express your opinion by posting a comment.
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.