Hi,

I'm confused about the stroke order of the primitive 癶 (Heisig named it teepee, it's dotted tent in kanjidict, first appears in HeisigV1 frame #1703 登). From various sources, I've found three different stroke orders for its right side (including Heisig's). Is there not a fixed one or does someone have an authoritative source from which to check the correct order?

Thanks,
gidler3

Interesting, THREE different stroke orders doing the rounds! I haven't learned this yet, so I looked it up in RTK1. I have to say I have developed a feel for stroke order having studied the traditional principles a considerable time before I discovered RTK, and I find Heisig's order feels wrong.

The order in Spahn & Hadamitsky and Mitamura & Mitamura is thus:
Note this is the corrected version, see discussion with laxxy below!



Which works better for me. In kyoukasho (textbook style) at least, stroke 3 starts (fractionally) higher than stroke 4 so should come first (but even if they started at the same height stroke 3 would still be first because right to left diagonal strokes take precedence over left-right); stroke 5 comes last because it is the lowest.

Of course there are exceptions to these rules, but this doesnt feel like the kind of kanji that would have an exceptional stroke order.

Still, who knows, perhaps it is one of those that has a disputed stroke order, and any of these will do.

I think http://kakijun.main.jp/ has the "official" Japanese order that is taught in schools, and it is the same as Heisig for this kanji.

laxxy Wrote:I think http://kakijun.main.jp/ has the "official" Japanese order that is taught in schools, and it is the same as Heisig for this kanji.

Are we looking at different versions of RTK1? I looked up 登 and 発 in the kakijun site and the stroke order is as I posted above, which is different to Heisig's, at least in my 4th ed. (Dec 2004) copy, where strokes 3 and 4 (in the above diagram) are reversed.

Pangolin Wrote:

laxxy Wrote:I think http://kakijun.main.jp/ has the "official" Japanese order that is taught in schools, and it is the same as Heisig for this kanji.

Are we looking at different versions of RTK1? I looked up 登 and 発 in the kakijun site and the stroke order is as I posted above, which is different to Heisig's, at least in my 4th ed. (Dec 2004) copy, where strokes 3 and 4 (in the above diagram) are reversed.

You're right, Heisig's strokes 3 and 4 are reversed. I don't recall why I memorized the kakujin order -- most likely I was studying on my cell phone and looked it up in PADict.

Yours 1 and 2 are reversed too, though, I thought it was about them. Kakujin/Heisig order feels more natural to me there.

Doh! That is a "typo", I was so concentrating on the relevant strokes 3 & 4 that I switched the first two around without noticing. I will correct the image for the record. Of course, the way I had the 1st 2 strokes would have been nonsense, ごめんなさい。

Heisig 3rd edition has this stroke order:


As noted above Kakijun has this stroke order:


I looked through the Heisig Cumulative Errata but found no corrections to this primitive.

All my dictionaries (Kanjidic, Tejina) use the Kakijun stroke order.

PS: Pangolin, how did you make that stroke order diagram? It's pretty!

ziggr Wrote:All my dictionaries (Kanjidic, Tejina) use the Kakijun stroke order.

PS: Pangolin, how did you make that stroke order diagram? It's pretty!

Thanks for posting those, that makes it very clear to everyone!

I did the original in Photoshop using the text tool with a Kyoukasho (textbook) font. If you "flatten" the text layer it becomes an image you can very easily edit.

(Kyoukasho is the printed style of kanji traditionally used in textbooks for teaching kanji. It's much better than the more commonly seen Mincho as it shows the separate strokes more clearly and demonstrates correct stroke style which also helps indicate stroke direction. It's the font style used in RTK for stroke order diagrams.)

As far as I'm concerned the "kakijun" order is the correct one, it's in every source I've seen so far, except RTK1.

A couple of weeks ago there was a contest on Japanese TV where people had to give the correct order of strokes for several kanji and 発 came up. Before the contestant started I drew 発 on the palm of my hand following Heisig's order. The contestant drew the kanji on a large board using the same order (!), and I was feeling pretty proud when a buzz sounded and the moderator told the audience that the kakijun order is the correct one :-) So the Japanese themselves seem to be unclear. I have rewired myself since then...