汉字偏旁部首名称表

changye

February 01, 2009, 04:30 AM

I've glanced over the list and realized that it's impossible for me to remember all the names of 部首, haha. Furthermore, they even have their own readings, for example ....

 

冫(bing1)两点水儿
疒 (ne4) 病字旁儿

廴 (yin3) 建之旁儿

彳 (chi4) 双人旁儿

虍 (hu1) 虎字头儿 (not hu3, but hu1)

 

Interestingly, 厂 is called 偏厂儿,but 广 is  广字旁儿.  冖 秃宝盖儿 is a humorous name (but makes sence). 秃 means "bald" in Chinese. And 宀 宝盖儿 is NOT bald. 春字头儿 is a little irregular, since the character 春 itself is listed under the radical 日 in a dictionary, but not under 春字头儿.

 

In the era of Internet, people don't put much importance on 部首. You can easily look up a word in an online dictionary by copying and pasting. On the other hand, ancient scholars emphasized them very much because they thought that 部首 imply the very original meanings of Chinese characters.

 

In ancient China, 部首 (parts of hanzi) were called "文", and the characters made of a few 部首 were called "字", and this is the reason that the oldest "部首-based" Chinese dictionary is titled "说文解字". This literally means "explain radicals and interpret characters".

 

P/S. A correct character is 框 (kuang4), but not 匡 (kuang1), in the list.

 

marwilli

February 01, 2009, 05:39 AM

This is a very useful list, thank you! Helps me a lot in describing characters to have them all in one place to memorise!

Actually the 部首 is not quite the same as a 文.

"部首" translates into English as "radical", and each character only has one 部首, which is what it is indexed under in a dictionary. It might contain several 文 which could serve as 部首, but it will only one of them will be the radical.

Traditional Chinese has (from memory) 213 or 214 distinct radicals and simplified Chinese has 227 or so, but there are many, many more distinct morphemes.

When someone says something like 四点儿(sìdiǎnr) or 火字旁儿(huǒzìpángr) they are strictly referring to character structure (although these two will almost always also be the the radical, which in both cases is 火部首 (or just 火部) in traditional Chinese but has been split into two distinct simplified Chinese radicals.

 

This whole system can be confusing at times. For example, 烏 is 火部 but 馬 is 馬部 and 媽 is 女部. all of these contain 四点儿!

 

As the previous writer said, radicals are not as important they once were. But they are still very useful tags to help us 老外 get the hang of characters, not least because the radical usually (but not always) contains the key to the meaning, and the bit that is not the radical very often gives a hint as to the pronunciation.

 

--Mark

 

changye

February 01, 2009, 06:49 AM

Hi Mark,

What you said is right. My explanation about 部首 and 文 was very unprecise. The term "部首" means "parts or characters that are used for an index in a Chinese dictionary", but it is not equal to 文, most basic parts of hanzi, e.g. 日，山，上，下.

And therefore a 文 itself can become a 部首, and at the same time, some 部首 also contain a few 文. I'm afraid I often mix them up, even though it has been more than forty years since I learned these words at primary school. What a shame, haha!

Incidentally, your story about "四点儿" is just hilarious/interesting. Actually, the poor “烏” (wu1, a crow) was treated as a 部首 in some ancient dicionaries, but it got "laid off" due to the downsizing of the number of 部首 over the past one thousand years.

There were more than five hundred 部首 in the past, wow.

marwilli

February 02, 2009, 04:31 AM

Thanks for that. I was actually wondering why "烏" was 火部 to tell the truth. Looked to me as if it should be a radical all by itself. I didn't realise the list of 部首 had been simplified over the years.

Like me, you no doubt have several dictionaries that are nearly worn out at the radical index section.But I was only made to learn them (only the traditional ones) about 15 years ago, so the pain is fresher in my mind. :-)

--Mark

changye

February 02, 2009, 05:08 AM

Hi Mark,

You guessed it right. Seriously, I'm very good at repairing a dictionary's binding. I feel pity for 乌 listed under the index "火" in modern dictionaries. I don't think that a grilled crow would be very tasty!

studyingenglish

September 23, 2010, 03:08 PM

hi,i'm looking for 汉字偏旁and got here，find a list.

火 is 火部 焰 炎 焱 烏 is 火部 why？is it 乌？

xiaophil

October 02, 2010, 03:47 AM

Am I right to think that it isn't necessary to add 儿 to the Chinese names of the radicals?  What is the normal convention?