字の旅3,000 years in four forms
Oracle bone · ShangShang · c. 1200 BCE簠天1 合33694 歷組
Oracle bone: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Bronze and small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
部首Radical · in Nature & Elements
月 moon, month, period
つき tsuki
4 strokesRadical of 8 kanjiPart of 64
Origin · sourced
Pictogram象形
Pictographic representation of a crescent moon. Related to 夕 and interchangeable in the past, but both are unrelated to 多, in which it represents two pieces of meat stylized as 夕.
Source: Wiktionary, 月 (rev. 93428147), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“The silver glow of the moon! Imagine the quiet beauty of a full moon rising over a dark horizon, marking the passage of time. This radical represents the cycles of the month and anything that is bright, clear, and hopeful. When you see it, think of "good news," the "period" between seasons, and the "cheerful" light that guides us through the night.”
Where it sits in a kanji
Indicates the moon, months, periods of time, brightness/clarity (reflecting moonlight), hope, and feelings of cheerfulness or looking forward.
What it grows into
- 朝morningチョウ · あさ
月 becomes 朝
In the oracle bone script, it was an ideogrammic compound (會意): 2 or 4 屮 (“grass”) or even 木 (“tree”) + 日 (“sun”) + 月 (“moon”) – the sun rising above the ground while the waning moon is still in the sky – the morning.
Ideogrammic compound · Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 朗melodiousロウ · ほがらか
良sound + 月
Phono-semantic compound · Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Every kanji with 月 as its radical
All 8 kanji