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A curious question about the method - Miyumera - 2011-01-23
Something I've always wondered about RTK from the beginning was if the variations in a primitive's form (e.g garment, or person) are based on truth or if it is just something James worked out for himself. like for example how the 'garment' primitive can have many forms based on it's location -- is this just somethign james worked out in order to learn the kanji or are those variation REALLY based on the kanji for 'garment'? The same thing for 'person', when it's on the left of a character it stands up, is that really based on the fact that it is indeed the character for person or is it just part of James's method of way of breaking down things and grouping things? Has anyone ever wondered this?
A curious question about the method - buonaparte - 2011-01-23
If you have a look at a chart of 部首 (classical radicals), you'll see that many of them have variations.
人 亻
爪 爫
火 灬
水 氵
糸 糹
心 忄
犬 犭
衣 衤
艸 艹
etc.
A curious question about the method - Zarxrax - 2011-01-23
A lot of his meanings for the primitives are totally made up. So it wouldn't surprise me if other stuff was made up.
If you want to learn actual etymology of the kanji, a different book would be necessary.
A curious question about the method - bertoni - 2011-01-24
Shameless plug for a book that I like a lot:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/常用字解-白川-静/dp/458212805X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1295911814&sr=8-2
A curious question about the method - mafried - 2011-01-25
Nearly all variations are based on etymology, a few are not (just like the keywords).