Radical 212, 龍, 龙, or 竜 meaning "

dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

", is one of the two of the 214

Kangxi radical The ''Kangxi'' radicals (), also known as ''Zihui'' radicals, are a set of 214 Chinese character radicals, radicals that were collated in the 18th-century ''Kangxi Dictionary'' to aid categorization of Chinese characters. They are primarily sor ...

s that are composed of 16

strokes Stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop ...

. The character arose as a stylized drawing of a Chinese dragon, and refers to a version of the

in each

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

: *

Chinese dragon The Chinese dragon or loong is a legendary creature in Chinese mythology, Chinese folklore, and Chinese culture generally. Chinese dragons have many animal-like forms, such as Bixi (mythology), turtles and Chiwen, fish, but are most commonly ...

, ''Lóng'' in Chinese *

Japanese dragon Japanese dragons (, ''Nihon no ryū'') are diverse legendary creatures in Japanese mythology and folklore. Japanese dragon myths amalgamate native legends with imported stories about dragons from China, Korea and the Indian subcontinent. The ...

, ''Ryū'' or ''Tatsu'' in Japanese *

Korean dragon Korean dragons () are legendary creatures in Korean mythology and folklore. It is also called ''Mir'' or ''Miri'' in Native Korean. In Korean mythology and culture Whereas most dragons in European mythology are linked to the elements of fire a ...

, ''Ryong'' or ''Yong'' in Korean *

Vietnamese dragon Vietnamese dragons (; ; Sino-Vietnamese: ''Long''; ) are symbolic creatures in Vietnamese folklore and mythology. According to an ancient origin myth, the Vietnamese people are descended from a dragon and an Immortal. The dragon was symbolic o ...

, ''Rồng'' in Vietnamese or ''Long'' in Sino-Vietnamese It may also refer to the

Dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

as it appears in the

Chinese zodiac The Chinese zodiac is a traditional classification scheme based on the Chinese calendar that assigns an animal and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating twelve-year (or duodenary) cycle. The zodiac is very important in traditional ...

. It is also a common surname. In the

Kangxi Dictionary The ''Kangxi Dictionary'' () is a Chinese dictionary published in 1716 during the High Qing, considered from the time of its publishing until the early 20th century to be the most authoritative reference for written Chinese characters. Wanting ...

14 characters (out of 40,000) are under this

radical Radical (from Latin: ', root) may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Classical radicalism, the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and Latin America in the 19th century *Radical politics ...

. It occurs as a

phonetic complement A phonetic complement is a phonetic symbol used to disambiguate word characters (logograms) that have multiple readings, in mixed logographic-phonetic scripts such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Akkadian cuneiform, Linear B, Japanese, and Mayan. O ...

in some fairly common Chinese characters, for example 聾 = "

deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

", which is composed of 龍 "dragon" and the "

ear In vertebrates, an ear is the organ that enables hearing and (in mammals) body balance using the vestibular system. In humans, the ear is described as having three parts: the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear co ...

" 耳 radical, "a word with meaning related to ears and pronounced similarly to 龍: "dragon gives sound, ear gives meaning".

Characters with Radical 212

Literature

* *Leyi Li: "Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases". Beijing 1993,

Notes

External links

Unihan Database - U+9F8D
{{Kangxi Radicals

212 Year 212 ( CCXII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Asper and Camilius (or, less frequently, year 965 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 212 for this ye ...

Chinese dragons