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Neil Hawkins
5th September 2000, 00:31
I am looking for either a website or good book on Shodo, specifically any etymology of the characters, why they developed what characters conbine to make other characters and so on. Any ideas? Obviously I would prefer english language text as I am very new to the Japanese language.

For example Dave Lowry in "The sword and the brush" states that the character for Shin (mind/heart) is supposed to represent the heart with it's four ventricles, or another story has it being a boatman guiding his long boat. I find this interesting and would like to know more.

I would also like to find a list of Kanji for the common MA terms, ones that are a bit more stylistic than are generated by a word processor. Plus I would like to copy them and use them so they would need to be not copyrighted images.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards

Neil

john mark
5th September 2000, 01:20
Hi Neil,

My Japanese is limited; but assuming that you are referring to Kanji and not Katakana, I might be able to help.

I recommend Cracking the Chinese Puzzles by TK Ann it's a 4 or 5 volume set. If you are less ambitous, try Fun With Chinese Characters by the The Staits Times.

There are other books that emphasize understanding the radical. Any good one will do.

Re Shin -- I was taught that the character was a simplification of the pictograph for the heart.

When writing rember your stroke order -- top to bottom, left to right, outside inside, closing stroke last.

Best,

[Edited by john mark on 09-04-2000 at 07:46 PM]

Neil Hawkins
5th September 2000, 01:44
Thanks John,

I'm less interested in learning how to do it, and more interested in the history, origins and so on.

I would also like to use some kanji as illustrations on some articles I'm writing. If I learn something whilst I'm doing this that's a bonus, I'm pretty resigned at this stage to not ever being fluent in Japanese. :)

This is more research than study.

Neil

john mark
5th September 2000, 01:50
Originally posted by Neil Hawkins

I'm less interested in learning how to do it, and more interested in the history, origins and so on.

Go with Fun With Chinese Characters.

BTW I'm a Bombers fan!!

Best,

Adam DArcy
5th September 2000, 20:51
Hello Neil,

I unfortunately don't know any good books about Shodo, but I can tell you that I learned a lot about Kanji and how they are constructed in present times from a book called "Remembering the Kanji" by Dr. James Heisig. The goal is to develop a system by which you remember easy to fairly complex characters by knowing what their parts mean and then combining the names for the parts of the kanji into a sentence that will help you remember how to read and write the Kanji. Not only will you learn what the parts of the Kanji mean, but you will probably also learn how to read and write 100's of Kanji at the same time. I believe the first book has only the kyouiku kanji - those taught in school. I think there are only around 900 characters in the book, but I'll check. He wrote more books after this one, but I haven't had a chance to look at them.

Other than the above book, I would recommend almost any kanji dictionary by Nelson or others.

Hope this helps.

Adam

Neil Hawkins
6th September 2000, 04:10
Thanks guys.

Neil

Gil Gillespie
6th September 2000, 15:52
Hi Neil and everyone----

A great book on this topic is Edoardo Fazzioli's "Chinese Calligraphy, From Pictograph to Ideogram: The History of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese Characters." Calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. Abbeville Press, NY, 1986. 251 pp. Beneath each of Ms Ko's characters is a line drawing and paragraph describing the history with 6 or so transitional characters from the ancient pictograph to the modern character. Intriguing study for just what Neil described.

I purchased this book some years back from the Edward R. Hamilton bargain book catalog (there is a website). I don't know of its availability.

Mark Brecht
6th September 2000, 16:03
Originally posted by Neil Hawkins
For example Dave Lowry in "The sword and the brush" states that the character for Shin (mind/heart) is supposed to represent the heart with it's four ventricles, or another story has it being a boatman guiding his long boat. I find this interesting and would like to know more.


As far as i know the heart represenation one is correct.

Hm, Neil, if you have specific Shodo related questions, you can also ask them in the Japanese Treasures section. I was already planning to get Miss Kakizawa to start a Shodo related threat. :D not to steal you from Adam here... Seriously, the JT sections is always open for discussions related to Japanese items, crafts and arts.

bdenison
31st January 2002, 02:18
Neil,

A good book to get the etymology of specific kanji is:

Henshall, K. G., (2000). A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters. Rutland, VT: Tuttle.

A good Unicode true type font that looks more like it was written with a brush and not computer generated is “Sword Kanji,” developed by Jim Kurrasc, and converted to be a Unicode font by Didier Mas. You can download it from the following URL:

http://didier.mas.free.fr/public/

I hope this helps.

etakase
7th February 2002, 22:23
One of my favorite sites for showing the meaning of Kanji parts is the Chinese/English dictionary site http://zhongwen.com/le.htm

This site gives the entire character and then break the character down into its components and then gives the meaning of each of the components.

As long as I am saying nice things about this site, it also has the original Chinese text for many classics like the Tao Te Ching.

And, I believe, the site can be viewed without special fonts.

The one warning is that it is Chinese and so there will be differences in the details. In many cases the Japanese Kanji have been simplified - however, the origins of the characters are the same.

Eri

Chris Li
8th February 2002, 00:43
Originally posted by etakase
The one warning is that it is Chinese and so there will be differences in the details. In many cases the Japanese Kanji have been simplified - however, the origins of the characters are the same.

Eri

I'd add that many modern Chinese characters have been simplified as well, but the simplifications are often different.

Best,

Chris