Seal ; a late graph (Shuowen). Has 頁 103 ‘head’, and 原 119 (‘spring/plain’) as a phonetic with associated sense ‘big’, to give ‘large head’. The meaning ‘request, wish’ is a loan usage. YK1976:109; KJ1970:337-8; OT1968:1108.
Mnemonic: I WISH TO LAY MY HEAD ON AN OPEN PLAIN
470
L3
希
KI, KE
desire, rare
7 strokes
希望 KIBŌ wish
希求 KIKYŪ desire
希薄 KIHAKU thinness
Bronze ; seal ; late graph (Shuowen). The seal form onwards has NJK 巾 (‘towel’), originally depicting a scrap of cloth, but as Katō and Yamada point out the bronze predecessor of this graph has a more elaborate element, taken to represent embroidered cloth; this combines with showing interwoven threads. Yamada takes ‘rare’ as a loan usage (Ogawa considers original sense of 希 to be ‘fine weave [of fabric]’, and by extension ‘extremely small; rare’); ‘desire’ is also a loan usage. KJ1970:6 87; YK1976:111; OT1968:315; MS1995:v2:1514-5; ZY2009:v4:1654.
Mnemonic: INTERWOVEN CLOTH THREADS DESIRABLE BUT RARE
471
L3
季
KI
season, young
8 strokes
季節 KISETSU season
四季 SHIKI the four seasons
季刊 KIKAN quarterly publication
OBI ; seal . Views vary. 禾 87 ‘grain plant’ (note: not necessarily just rice – Qiu takes it to denote foxtail millet, grown widely in NW China from ancient times), and 子 27 ‘child’, which Yamada treats as semantic and phonetic, meaning ‘young’, to give ‘young grain’, and believes the association with crops was later lost and the sense ‘child’ came to prominence, giving ‘young child’. Katō is in broad agreement, but chooses to follow the Shuowen assessment in regarding 禾 as an abbreviation of 稚 1700 ‘young’. Schuessler notes use of 季 in bronze texts already to mean ‘young, youngest (of persons)’, with ‘season, three-month period’ as a much later sense (Tang period). Three months is roughly the period needed for grains such as barley and millet to grow and ripen. YK1976:112; KJ1970:244; AS2007:298; MS1995:v1:350-52.
Mnemonic: GRAIN PLANTS IN SEASON GROW LIKE YOUNG CHILDREN
472
L1
紀
KI
chronicle, start
9 strokes
紀元 KIGEN epoch, era
紀行 KIKŌ travelogue
五世紀 GOSEIKI fifth century
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has 己 866 (modern meaning ‘self’) in broad original sense of ‘length of thread’ (Yamada takes as phonetic also) with meaning extended to ‘beginning’ (one of the ends of the thread), later clarified by adding determinative ‘thread’ 糸 29. Yamada treats the sense ‘record, chronicle’ as loan usage, but alternatively it may be extended usage on the basis of the thread of continuity in an account or record. As Qiu notes – with reference to Chinese – there is some overlap in usage of 紀 and 記 115 ‘account, record’, and this may also be the case in Japanese. KJ1970:234; YK1976:112; OT1968:766; QX2000:297-8; AS2007:298.
Mnemonic: THREADS IN CHRONICLE OF ONESELF START FROM BEGINNING
473
L3
喜
KI, yorokobu
rejoice, happy
12 strokes
喜劇 KIGEKI comedy
歓喜 KANKI delight
大喜び ōyorokobi great joy
OBI ; seal . Typically interpreted as 口 22 ‘mouth’, with functioning as semantic and phonetic with original sense ‘sprouts of vegetation newly emerged from the ground’, to give ‘put soft, cooked food in the mouth’. (It may also have a connection with a food vessel 豆 379.) It should be noted that Mizukami, Yamada, and Katō treat as phonetic only, and with this analysis, ‘be pleased’ is seen as an extended sense. Alternatively, is taken as a large drum with some sort of embellishment on top (this view also listed by Mizukami), and on this basis Ogawa takes 喜 as musical instruments set up on a stand, which is the meaning given in Shuowen, to give ‘play musical instruments and feel pleasure’. In working out his etymologies, the Shuowen compiler Xu Shen did not have access to the OBI forms which were often so valuable in determining the meanings, or the line of development of meanings of graphs, but which were brought to light in Mainland China only from 1899 onwards. The OBI forms are accessible, though, to Ma, who still prefers to regard ‘drum’ as the appropriate meaning of
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