Radical 212, 龍, 龙, or 竜 meaning " dragon", is one of the two of the 214

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 that are composed of 16

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, ...

. The character arose as a stylized drawing of a Chinese dragon,龍: bottom left: jaws (open downwards); top left: back of head; right side: body and legs; right bottommost stroke: tail and refers to a version of the dragon in each

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these grou ...

: *

Chinese dragon The Chinese dragon, also known as ''loong'', ''long'' or ''lung'', is a legendary creature in Chinese mythology, Chinese folklore, and Chinese culture at large. Chinese dragons have many Outline of life forms, animal-like forms such as Bixi (my ...

, ''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. ...

, ''Ryū'' or ''Tatsu'' in Japanese *

Korean dragon Korean dragons are legendary creatures in Korean mythology and folklore. The appearance of the dragon reflects its relation to its East Asian counterparts, including the Chinese dragons. Korean dragons Whereas most dragons in European mythology ...

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

Vietnamese dragon Vietnamese dragons ( vi, Rồng; ; 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 a fairy. The dragon was symb ...

, ''Rồng'' in Vietnamese It may also refer to the Dragon as it appears in the

Chinese zodiac The Chinese zodiac is a traditional classification scheme based on the lunar calendar that assigns an animal and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating twelve-year cycle. Originating from China, the zodiac and its variations remai ...

. It is used as the symbol for

Tatsu Tatsu is a flying roller coaster designed by Bolliger & Mabillard at the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park located in Valencia, California, United States. Manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard, it opened as the tallest, fastest, and longes ...

, a roller coaster at

Six Flags Magic Mountain Six Flags Magic Mountain, formerly known and colloquially referred to as simply Magic Mountain, is a amusement park located in Valencia, California, northwest of downtown Los Angeles. It opened on May 29, 1971, as a development of the New ...

, in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

. In the

Kangxi Dictionary The ''Kangxi Dictionary'' ( (Compendium of standard characters from the Kangxi period), published in 1716, was the most authoritative dictionary of Chinese characters from the 18th century through the early 20th. The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing ...

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

radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics * Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe an ...

. 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, Japanese, and Mayan. Often they ...

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 An ear is the organ that enables hearing and, in mammals, body balance using the vestibular system. In mammals, the ear is usually described as having three parts—the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear consists ...

" 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,

References

External links

Unihan Database - U+9F8D
{{Kangxi Radicals

212 Year 212 ( CCXII) 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 Asper and Camilius (or, less frequently, year 965 ''Ab urbe condita ...