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Is there any official resource listing all Japanese kanji with a given radical? For example I want to know all kanji with the radical 亻.

When I looked I found many sites, but each site has a different number of kanji. I can study from the site with the largest number but what if there are more kanji with this radical ? So I need an official resource.

And there is another big problem. For example, some sites say that the kanji 倍 contains 亻+ 立 + 口, and other sites say it contains this radical 亠. So an official resource can be helpful.

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  • 1
    What do you mean by 'official'? What would 'all Japanese kanji' include? – Mathieu Bouville Feb 23 at 16:48
  • @MathieuBouville i deleted "japanese kanji" term ... what I mean with "official" is a site with full information and resources about this topic (radicals).... For example i wanna know all kanjis with this radical亻.. is there any site can give me the full list – user32763 Feb 23 at 16:54
  • 公益財団法人 日本漢字能力検定協会 is pretty official, ain't it? If you wanna get your hands dirty with printed material maybe try: amazon.com/Kanken-jiten-Noryoku-Kentei-Kyokai/dp/4890963057/… – BJCUAI Feb 23 at 19:12
  • You can check Unicode blocks for all CJK characters with the radical 亻, but it's really hard to tell whether they are "Japanese Kanji" or not without a clear criteria. – Weijun Zhou Feb 25 at 8:02
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I want to know all kanji with the radical 亻

I'm not sure that you actually want to do this.

Firstly, I think it's helpful to clarify what a radical actually is.

enter image description here

A radical (部首) is a section (部) header (首) of a dictionary. It is exactly analogous to the first letter of an English word - they are both just dictionary indexing tools.

Wanting to know all kanji with the radical「亻」is like wanting to know all English words starting with the letter「Ａ」. I'm sure that you'll agree that this is not the most helpful way of learning English (or kanji).

Perhaps, instead, you meant that you want to know all kanji containing「亻」as a character component. Given the long history of kanji and how they have changed over the years, there is not actually a reference (as of early 2019) that tells you all the kanji containing some component X. Two major reasons are:

  1. Kanji components change shape depending on where they are found in the character. The stand-alone shape of「人」is a side-view of a person.

    商
    甲
    enter image description here
    鐵191.1
    合集10869    楚
    簡
    enter image description here
    包2・2
    　    秦
    簡
    enter image description here
    睡・日乙17
    　    今
    楷
    enter image description here

    　

    • 「人」becomes「亻」generally when the next stroke after「人・亻」is written towards the right side.

      商
      甲
      enter image description here
      簠地57
      合集6330      西周
      金
      enter image description here
      大盂鼎
      集成2837      楚
      簡
      enter image description here
      包2・197
      　      今
      楷
      enter image description here

      　

      「保」was originally a picture of a person「人・亻」carrying a child「子」on their back, indicating the meaning carry, protect.

    • 「人」becomes「儿」when it is found at the bottom of characters.

      商
      甲
      enter image description here
      乙3798
      合集17644      楚
      簡
      enter image description here
      包2・217
      　      秦
      簡
      enter image description here
      日甲125背
      　
      篆
      enter image description here
      說文解字
      　      東漢
      隸
      enter image description here
      北海相景君
      　      今
      楷
      enter image description here

      　

      「先」was originally a combination of a foot going away from a place「之」and a person「人・儿」, indicating the original meaning to go forward > first, before.

    • 「人」may also be mirror-reflected, rotated, and there are plenty of exceptions...

      商
      甲
      enter image description here
      菁2.1
      合集6057      秦
      簡
      enter image description here
      睡・法174
      　      今
      楷
      enter image description here

      　

      「北」originally depicted two people back-to-back. This meaning is now written as「背」, formed by adding an additional semantic「肉・⺼」.

  2. Kanji components may have fused with other components, so in some characters you can't actually tell them apart in the modern script anymore.

    • 商
      甲
      enter image description here
      粹853
      合集28287      春秋
      金
      enter image description here
      鄀公平侯鼎
      集成2772      秦
      簡
      enter image description here
      睡・編7
      　      東漢
      隸
      enter image description here
      夏承碑
      　      東漢
      隸
      enter image description here
      華山廟碑
      　      今
      楷
      enter image description here

      　

      「[年]{ねん}」(Baxter-Sagart OC:/*C.nˤi[ŋ]/; year) was originally a combination of semantic「禾」(grain, crops) and simultaneously semantic and phonetic「[人]{にん}・亻」(/*ni[ŋ]/; person), depicting a person carrying harvested grains on their back and indicating the meaning (yearly) harvest.「人・亻」was later modified into「[千]{せん}」(/*s.n̥ˤi[ŋ]/) through the addition of a horizontal mark but remaining as a phonetic, then the separate components completely joined together.

    • 商
      甲
      enter image description here
      明2065
      合集17950      西周
      金
      enter image description here
      邢侯簋
      集成4241      秦
      簡
      enter image description here
      睡・法64
      　      今
      楷
      enter image description here

      　

      「[重]{ちょう}」(/*N-toŋʔ-s/; heavy) was originally a combination of semantic「人・亻」and simultaneously semantic and phonetic「[東]{とう}」(/*tˤoŋ/; picture of a bag), depicting a person carrying a heavy bag, indicating the meaning heavy.「土」was added later and the three components「人・亻」,「東」, and「土」were fused very early onwards.

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  • Hi droooze , I meant somthing like this nihongo-pro.com/kanji-pal/list/radical/9/strokes is there a bigger list ? – user32763 Feb 25 at 18:03
  • @user32763 that list is incredibly misleading. A large number of characters on that list do not contain「人」. – droooze Feb 25 at 18:30
  • yes I know that the most of them use 亻 .. I meant the genral idea of this list of kanjis that use certain radical ... is there a site which bigger and better than this? – user32763 Feb 25 at 18:50
  • There are plenty, if you don't restrict to Kanji (which needs a clear definition) but are open to lists containing CJK ideographs. – Weijun Zhou Mar 3 at 9:44

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