Same radical = same on'yomi?

Japanese Language Kanji
#1

I’ve noticed a few kanji that look similar or have the same main radical seem to have identical 音読みreadings…?

For example:
「時、持、寺」with onyomi ジ
「未、味」with onyomi ミ
I’ve seen a few more but I can’t remember them off the top of my head. Has anyone else noticed this?

Is this just purely a coincidence? It kind of makes sense to me that similar looking characters would be read similar ways, but most of them aren’t at all. I’m interested to know if there’s background information to this, and how the readings were chosen/came in to use in a historical context.

4 Likes
#2

You can use this script to see the semantic-phonetic components of WK kanji:

7 Likes
#3

Ah thanks! That’s really interesting.

#4

This is a real thing, and good job discovering it on your own! As you realized, not all kanji/components have a consistent reading, and there are exceptions too. But it is very useful to recognize these! Definitely check out the script that @plantron_RickMatsuri posted, as it will help you find a bunch more of these that you may not have noticed on your own.

9 Likes
#5

See this article https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-writing

Some Chinese characters are indeed pictographs. Others have one part that indicates very generally what the meaning of the word is, and another part that is used to represent the sound.

#6

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.