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Welcome! Introduction
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KE N
no ki
Glyph elements [ Toggle Font ]
HIGH-SPIRITED is the main Chinese usage, but the high places by a rooftop (EAVES) leading to the meaning a COUNTER FOR HOUSES, is the main meaning that remains in Japanese, who are apparently a bit more staid than the Chinese, generally. Scholars say this glyph depicted the concept of a cover or canopy used to keep a cart dry similar to a covered wagon with the right element as the shape of the supporting frame, and conveys a defense against arrows, and the Sun, wind, and rain, and that this same concept applies to a roof, seen from underneath and outside as the eaves (…sure it does).
External source definitions …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may include extended definitions, euphemisms, and mnemonics)
Chinese: pavilion with a view; high; tall; high fronted, curtained carriage (old)
Japanese EDRDG: flats, counter for houses, eaves
Unihan extended: carriage; high; wide; balcony of the Yellow Emperor
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: 32 entries
Chinese usage: 14 entries
Related glyphs [ Toggle font ]
Similar glyphs with related meanings: 9 entries
- Glyph.03604
- Strokes: 10
- jlpt-N3 grade_08
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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.
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