So, I've been studying Chinese-Japanese calligraphy for a while now. It's very demanding on my time. Like learning to play the piano, it requires frequent and long practice
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Thank you. I'm pretty sure an expert would think otherwise, though. :)
It all depends on which little part you mess up. If it's just drawing the stroke crooked, it's considered "badly done". If you miss a stroke, it's considered pathetic - and could actually change the meaning in certain characters. For example, 大 is "large", while 犬 is "dog", and 太 is "fat" and 木 is "tree". In more complex structures, a missed stroke will not change the meaning, but you might forget a whole part - and that will change the meaning. For example, 楽 is "comfort" or "fun", and 薬 is "medicine" or "drug". The only difference is the little three-stroke thingy on top.
Wow, that's interesting... What about "large fat dog barking up a tree ;-)?
Just joking.
It's really quite fascinating. I would be curious about their etymology. Like: The "comfort and fun" hormone, serotonine - one (later) addition would probably point to "artificial" wellbeing...?
Heh. Japanese also has its phonetic writing system which is used for connections and inflections, so "large fat dog barking up a tree" would probably be something like 木に吠えている大きくて太っている犬. You can pick the individual Chinese characters there between the "others". And in Chinese it would look completely different, of course.
Yes, the etymology of these characters is interesting. First, one has to realize that they are made of elements. There is a main "radical" which more or less categorizes the character. It's usually on the left or bottom, but some radicals go on top. The "comfort" character belongs to the "tree" radical (which is at its bottom), but the "medicine"'s radical is actually that three-stroke thingy at the top - which is the herb radical. So it may well mean "a herb - related to comfort/fun".
However, 95% of the Chinese characters that are made in this way (radical+another character) are actually phonetic - based on ancient Mandarin similarity of sound. For example, take the character for "cat" 猫. It's categorized with
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Your attempts look very nice, though! What happens if you get a tiny bit wrong? Does it say something else, or just look badly done ;-)?
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It all depends on which little part you mess up. If it's just drawing the stroke crooked, it's considered "badly done". If you miss a stroke, it's considered pathetic - and could actually change the meaning in certain characters. For example, 大 is "large", while 犬 is "dog", and 太 is "fat" and 木 is "tree". In more complex structures, a missed stroke will not change the meaning, but you might forget a whole part - and that will change the meaning. For example, 楽 is "comfort" or "fun", and 薬 is "medicine" or "drug". The only difference is the little three-stroke thingy on top.
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Just joking.
It's really quite fascinating. I would be curious about their etymology.
Like: The "comfort and fun" hormone, serotonine - one (later) addition would probably point to "artificial" wellbeing...?
Reply
Yes, the etymology of these characters is interesting. First, one has to realize that they are made of elements. There is a main "radical" which more or less categorizes the character. It's usually on the left or bottom, but some radicals go on top. The "comfort" character belongs to the "tree" radical (which is at its bottom), but the "medicine"'s radical is actually that three-stroke thingy at the top - which is the herb radical. So it may well mean "a herb - related to comfort/fun".
However, 95% of the Chinese characters that are made in this way (radical+another character) are actually phonetic - based on ancient Mandarin similarity of sound. For example, take the character for "cat" 猫. It's categorized with ( ... )
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