Radical 194 or radical ghost () meaning "

ghost A ghost is the soul (spirit), soul or spirit of a dead Human, person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visibl ...

" or " demon" is one of the 8

Kangxi radical The 214 Kangxi radicals (), also known as the Zihui radicals, form a system of radicals () of Chinese characters. The radicals are numbered in stroke count order. They are the most popular system of radicals for dictionaries that order Traditi ...

s (214 radicals in total) composed of 10

strokes Stroke (also known as a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) or brain attack) is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, ...

. (9 strokes in Simplified Chinese) is also the 184th indexing component in the ''

Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components ''The Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components'' () is a lexicographic tool used to order the Chinese characters in mainland China. The specification is also known as GF 0011-2009. In China's normative documents, "radical" is defined as any ...

'' predominantly adopted by

Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions ...

dictionaries published in

mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater Chin ...

Evolution

File:鬼-oracle.svg,

Oracle bone script Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or turtle plastrons used in pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millennium BC, and is the earliest kno ...

character File:鬼-bronze.svg,

Bronze script Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as ''zhōng'' bells and '' dǐng'' tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd m ...

character File:鬼-bigseal.svg,

Large seal script The large seal script or great seal script () is a traditional reference to Chinese writing from before the Qin dynasty (i.e. before 221 BCE), and is now popularly understood to refer narrowly to the writing of the Western and early Eastern Zho ...

character File:鬼-seal.svg,

Small seal script The small seal script (), or Qin script (, ''Qínzhuàn''), is an archaic form of Chinese calligraphy. It was standardized and promulgated as a national standard by the government of Qin Shi Huang, the founder of the Chinese Qin dynasty. Name ...

character The character is historically composed of "legs", representing a large demon's head and a curl looking similar to taken to represent a swirl of vapour, or a demon's tail. The character can be traced to the

oracle bone script Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or turtle plastrons used in pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millennium BC, and is the earliest kno ...

, where it depicts a man kneeling on a monster head.

Derived characters

Most of the characters derived from the radical have meanings related to ghosts or souls, including "devil, demon", "black magic", "nightmare", "soul". In some signs, however, the radical is present purely as a phonetic marker, for example in , the

State of Wei Wei (; ; Old Chinese: *') was one of the seven major states during the Warring States period of ancient China. It was created from the three-way Partition of Jin, together with Han and Zhao. Its territory lay between the states of Qin and ...

during the

Spring and Autumn period The Spring and Autumn period was a period in Chinese history from approximately 770 to 476 BC (or according to some authorities until 403 BC) which corresponds roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou period. The period's name derives fr ...

Variant forms

Literature

* *Li, Leyi: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, *Harbaugh, Rick, ''Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary'', Yale University Press (1998),

*Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth (江伊莉), 甲骨文的“鬼”与假面具 (The Gui-Spirit in Oracle Bone Inscriptions), International Conference Celebrating the 95th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions", Anyang, China, 1994.

External links

Unihan Database - U+9B3C
{{Simplified Chinese radicals

194 Year 194 ( CXCIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Septimius and Septimius (or, less frequently, year 947 ''Ab urbe c ...

184 __NOTOC__ Year 184 ( CLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Eggius and Aelianus (or, less frequently, year 937 ''Ab ...

Evolution

Derived characters

Variant forms

Literature

See also

External links