Chinese: Tones for radicals

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Reply #1 - 2012 July 30, 6:02 pm
turvy Banned
From: Japan Registered: 2012-01-27 Posts: 430

I got a copy of Reading & Writing Chinese Simplified Characters, like a Hanzi guide with meanings, stroke order, tones, etc., and I was looking over things and noticed there are tones for radicals. For example 冂 jiong1. What's this for? If the character is never used by itself how come it has a tone?

Last edited by turvy (2012 July 30, 6:02 pm)

Reply #2 - 2012 July 30, 6:11 pm
kitakitsune Member
From: Tokyo Registered: 2008-10-19 Posts: 1006

I don't speak Chinese but it could be the Chinese name of the radical.

Reply #3 - 2012 July 30, 6:52 pm
midonnay Member
From: australia Registered: 2011-12-20 Posts: 54

I don't speak mandarin......but don't some radicals indicate the pronunciation?

like the pure groups in Heisig book 2

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Reply #4 - 2012 July 30, 7:34 pm
turvy Banned
From: Japan Registered: 2012-01-27 Posts: 430

Now I am thinking it could be something like its original pronunciation, that is, when the character was used independently.

Reply #5 - 2012 July 30, 8:47 pm
yudantaiteki Member
Registered: 2009-10-03 Posts: 3619

Even if the character was never used independently, someone assigned it a pronunciation at some point, even if only for a dictionary.

Reply #6 - 2012 July 30, 8:51 pm
turvy Banned
From: Japan Registered: 2012-01-27 Posts: 430

So like kitakitsune said that could be the name of the radical, I see.

Reply #7 - 2012 July 30, 9:17 pm
yudantaiteki Member
Registered: 2009-10-03 Posts: 3619

turvy wrote:

So like kitakitsune said that could be the name of the radical, I see.

I don't think it's the name of the radical -- as far as I know, Chinese is similar to Japanese in that they use names like 門構え（もんがまえ） for the radicals rather than just single syllables.

I haven't researched this, but my guess would be that at some point in the distant past when some dictionary was being compiled in China, the compiler thought every character needed a pronunciation whether it was actually used or not, so they either made one up or found a dubious source.  Then dictionaries since then have simply repeated the old information.

EDIT: According to Chinese wikipedia the name of this radical is 冂部 (jiong1bu4), so I guess you could say that's the radical name. (EDIT 2: Although there seem to be other names for the radicals as well that are more along the lines of the Japanese titles; I don't know which ones are used more commonly or what the one for this radical is.))

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2012 July 30, 9:20 pm)

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