Mnemonic: HAPPINESS IS HAVING TEN BEANS IN YOUR MOUTH
474
L1
旗
KI, hata
flag
14 strokes
国旗 KOKKI national flag
旗持ち hatamochi flag bearer
旗魚 kajiki* billfish
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has 353 (‘flagpole and streaming banner’) ‘flag’, and 其 269 (originally ‘winnowing basket’, later other senses including ‘that’) as phonetic with associated sense ‘gather together’, to give ‘flag for troops to gather under’. KJ1970:240; YK1976:117; OT1968:457. Suggest 方 223 as ‘side’, and as 41 ‘person’.
Mnemonic: PERSON AT SIDE OF WINNOWING BASKET HOLDS A FLAG
475
L3
器
KI, utsuwa
vessel, utensil, skill, ability
15 strokes
器具 KIGU utensil
食器 SHOKKI tableware
器用 KIYŌ skill
Bronze ; seal ; traditional 器. Despite the distinctive nature of this graph, interpretations diverge quite markedly. The graph has 犬 19 ‘dog’, and the element , which according to the most popular analysis means ‘many mouths’ (口 22) and also plays a role as a phonetic with an associated sense of ‘breath’, to give ‘dog breathing with open mouth (in summer heat)’ (Katō, Yamada; and also listed by Mizukawa). ‘Container(s)’ is then taken as an extended usage based on ‘open mouth’. However, Ogawa takes the graph instead to represent ‘many dogs howling’, and treats ‘container(s)’ as a loan usage. Shirakawa follows his preferred interpretation of 口 as ‘prayer receptacle’, not ‘mouth’, and analyzes 器 as a graph representing a number of ritual receptacles purified by a dog sacrifice. Another interpretation – perhaps less palatable to some readers – is to take dog here as food to be divided amongst many mouths or containers/bowls (eating dog meat became established in China at a very early period). To the above variety of interpretations, one might possibly also add an interpretation of the graph as a dog wheeling to defend itself on all quarters, its weapon of defence being the teeth in its mouth, leading to possible derived meanings such as ‘fight hard’ and thus show ability etc. Gu proposes a quite different analysis of 器, giving an OBI form with a tree-like shape rather than dog which he interprets as mulberry, noting that in ancient China mulberry branches were used as part of burial ritual. As an alternative explanation regarding the graph’s meaning of ‘skill’, given the range of usage for 器 in Chinese texts from Han times, this might appear to be an extended meaning, possibly through ‘container’ giving rise to ‘utensil’ and in turn ‘utensil’ giving rise to a person using a utensil in an optimal (= skilled) manner. Note that 噐 is an unofficial variant form of 器. KJ1970:232-3; YK1976:118; MS1995:v1:248-9; OT1968: 195; SS1984:153. As a mnemonic, given that the dog 犬 has already lost its spot and become 大 , we suggest taking the graph as the identical 大 56 ‘big’ and four boxes.
Mnemonic: FOUR BIG BOX-LIKE VESSELS ARE USEFUL UTENSILS
476
L3
機
KI, hata
loom, device, occasion
16 strokes
機能 KINŌ function
機会 KIKAI opportunity
機織 hataori weaving
Bronze ; seal . Interpretations vary. Has 木 73 ‘tree, wood’, and the right-hand element 幾 1181 (modern meaning ‘how much/many?’) which Yamada takes as both semantic and phonetic, meaning ‘stop thread’, to give ‘device to move vertical (warp) thread on loom’, then used by extension to refer in general to something which has a stopping action. Katō breaks down 幾 (itself the original way of writing 機: see also 1181) into 絲 29 ‘threads’, with 戌 545 (person carrying halberd) as phonetic with associated sense ‘stop firmly’, to give overall meaning in agreement with Yamada, i.e. ‘device to control vertical thread [on loom]’. Tōdō analyzes 機 (and 幾) differently, including the underlying linguistic forms in a word-family ‘small, detailed’, and – on the basis of the way the graph 機 is treated in Shuowen along with other weaving-related graphs – takes it to refer likewise in broad terms originally to a small mechanical device in a loom. Tōdō notes that 機 was also employed for a variety of other small devices related to movement, then for ‘loom’; by further extension, the association with initiating movement gave rise to the sense ‘opportunity/occasion’. Schuessler, for his part, has reservations about the above interpretation, which is common to Tōdō and Karlgren. Despite emphases on stopping on the one hand and starting on the other, the key factor is ‘control’. Whichever interpretation is followed, unchanging is the fact that 木 was later added to 幾 to denote ‘loom’ or ‘small mechanical device’ in order to distinguish this sense from 幾 in its increasingly common use for other words of the same or similar pronunciation but different, abstract meanings (‘for a short time’, ‘how many times?’ ‘how much’, etc.). KJ1970:144-5; YK1976:118; TA1965:695-7; AS2007:293; WD1974:416-7.
Mnemonic: ON HOW MANY OCCASIONS IS A WOODEN LOOM USED?
477
L3
議
GI
discussion
20 strokes
議論 GIRON discussion
会議 KAIGI conference
議会 GIKAI the Diet
Seal ; a late graph (Shuowen). Has 言 118 ‘words, speech’, and 義 674 (originally denoted a beautiful dance or appearance, now meaning ‘righteousness’, qv) as phonetic with associated sense ‘criticize’ (Katō, Yamada, Shirakawa) or as semantic element meaning
豆 379 ‘food vessel/beans’ and 口 22 ‘mouth’.
