480531170

211
売
BAI, uru/reru
sell
L4
7 strokes
BAIBAIdealing
BAITENstall
urimonoitem for sale
A late graph (Shuowen) . Traditional form is
. 521 (‘samurai’) is in error for – or possibly
an abbreviation of – 36 ‘put out, display’,
combining with a second element 212 ‘buy’,
serving here as semantic and phonetic meaning
‘exchange’; overall meaning is ‘put things
out to exchange for money’. 10 represents a
shell as currency. YK1976:411; KJ1970:760-61.
Mnemonic: SAMURAI WITH CROOKED LEGS
SELLING OVER THE COUNTER
212
買
BAI, kau
buy
L5
12 strokes
BAISHŪpurchase
kaimonoshopping
kaitebuyer
A more ancient graph than () 211 (‘sell’).
Exists from OBI stage . Ogawa takes as 10
‘shell currency’, with 570 ‘net’ as semantic
and phonetic meaning ‘take, acquire’, giving
‘buy for money’. Katō, alternatively, takes as semantic
, with as phonetic with associated
sense ‘exchange’, giving ‘exchange for (shell)
currency’. MR2007:349; SS1984:686; KJ1970:760;
OT1968:956.
Mnemonic: A NETFUL OF SHELLS CAN BE
USED TO BUY
213
麦
BAKU, mugi
barley, wheat
L3
7 strokes
BAKUGAmalt
mugiCHAbarley tea
komugiwheat
OBI . Traditional form: . Views diverge.
Taken by Karlgren and Ma as based on a pictograph
of a wheat or barley plant. Ma sees the
lowest part as the root; Ogawa and Tōdō interpret
lowest part as ‘descending foot’ (see
Appendix), to give ‘wheat/barley given down
from Heaven’. This graph is a member of Tōdō’s
word-family meaning ‘descend’, and he notes
that for the ancient Chinese this grain was
believed to be given by the deities. Shirakawa
takes it to refer to a ceremonial dance for the
grain. Schuessler gives the thought-provoking
view of Pulleyblank, who suggests (see 237)
is the original graph for the cereal, and that the
separate graph , meaning ‘wheat’ (with
‘foot’) was originally intended for ‘come’. Katō
sees as phonetic, but this seems less likely.
BK1957:245-6; MR2007:330; TA1965:169-71;
SS1984:692; AS2007:374, 342-3; KJ1970:287-8.
Mnemonic: SITTING CROSS-LEGGED
WATCHING WHEAT PLANT GROW
214
L5
半
HAN, nakaba
half, middle
5 strokes
HANBUNhalf
HANTŌpeninsula
HANtoshihalf-year
Bronze ; traditional . The upper part is
70 ‘divide’ (both a semantic and phonetic
indicator), and the lower part is a stylized representation
of an ox head showing horns and
ears. The original sense of ‘butcher an ox carcass
into two halves’ took on the broader meaning
of ‘half’. MS1995:v1:166-7; KJ1970:784;
YK1976:416.
Mnemonic: SPLIT OX HEAD DOWN THE
MIDDLE INTO HALVES
98 The 160 Second Grade Characters