Does anyone have any recommendations for books about the history and composition of Kanji, as opposed to books helping to memorize or write kanji?
For example, in Wanikani we learn that 覀 is the radical for ‘helicopter.’ But the ancient scribes who originally incorporated this radical into kanji probably weren’t thinking about helicopters. So what the hell was this thing really?
I would love to find a book that is accessible (i.e. not a 1200 page academic treatise), readable (i.e. not a kanji dictionary), and - why not? - in Japanese.
I’ve found this one ; it seems to include the historical development of kanji for learning them, but it’s not only focused on this. I don’t have it so I couldn’t give you a review. But if you are also okay with an application, you can download the Kanji Study app by Chase Colburn and purchase the Outlier Dictionary extensions on it. It’s very useful.
This is more on the “dictionary” side of things, but for the “why” of why any particular kanji is the way it is, you could try Seeley, Henshall and Fan’s The Complete Guide to Japanese Kanji. This is the updated version of Henshall’s old “A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters” book. The Amazon page has some images so you can see what you get for typical kanji, but basically they give a brief etymology of each kanji and a mnemonic phrase that typically incorporates the components and one or more of the meanings. The etymologies are trustable, in that they give references and mention when there are multiple opinions.
This is what I’d use to answer your question about the 覀 component, if I wasn’t halfway around the world from my copy. (There’s at least a fifty percent chance the answer will be different for different kanji because multiple different things were simplified into the same 覀 shape.)
The author of book THE KEY TO ALL JOYO KANJI: A Study Guide Using Common Shapes and Ancient Characters that was suggested by @kokoinshu
She (Noriko Williams) also has this free website
which I believe also has the same information as the book given the description of the website
VISUAL KANJI is a unique online tutorial course. You will study 1100 kanji and 7000 related vocabulary items by examining common components. You will find this fun to learn and easier to remember because it is based on an etymological breakdown.
Kanji Alive and The Kanji Map also has some etymological drawings
(see screenshots)
On another note, if you just want to quickly find the composition of kanji or quickly get all links to Kanji information references such as The Kanji Map and Kanji Alive (among others) you can checkout
I like this book, “Kanji no satori” by Steve Thenell.
It is very much a book about kanji so maybe what you mean by composition.
J\E Glossary of terminolgy alone is useful.
It is not another set of mnemonics.
It does not have a lot about history. The Outlier stuff already mentioned seems to be detailed for etymology (but I find it rather repetitive and not for me so useful).
Now I’m back home I checked Henshall on this, and it is one of those “different origin depending on the character” components:
in 要 it was originally a drawing of two hands holding a waist, because the original meaning of this kanji was “waist” – there has been drift from “waist” to “middle part” to “essential/needed” (and the bottom part got switched from a component meaning “legs” to the 女 shape at some point)
in 票 it was a slightly different “two hands holding something” drawing, which might have been just a variant of “waist” but Henshall thinks more likely two hands holding a head to mean “neck” (used here mostly phonetically)
in 煙 the right side is a Chinese-only character meaning block/embankment, where the 覀 part is 西 being used as a phonetic component
in 価 the right side used to be 覀 on top of 貝, which H. thinks was a variant of an old form of 売 written with 士 on top of 買, so under this theory the 覀 comes from merging the 士 with the 罒
in 覆 it was originally written without the bottom stroke, and derives from a pictograph of an upturned dish
Pictogram (象形): a man 大 then drawn as a woman (女) with two hands pointing to his/her midsection. On top of the character there was huge eye 目, then stylized as a horn 角. The hands gradually shifted upwards; hence, a nearly-original version of the character is 𡢗. All the upper part was eventually stylized as 覀. Unrelated to 栗 but partly related to 票.
Original meaning was “waist” (now 腰 (OC *qew)).
You also get the historical forms of the kanji. It also lists phonetic series and alternative forms of the character if they exist. I haven’t found a better free resource in English.
