I’ve came across multiple Kanji that contain 月 but have the meaning of some kind of human body part, e.g.: 臓 (entrails), 腰 (waist, lower back), 膝 (knee), 腕 (arm), 腹 (stomach)
What’s the story behind this? Was the moon previously a body pictogram (without a head and arms) maybe?
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it’s called nikuzuki, the meat-moon. it’s because it’s derived from 肉 which morphed into 月
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%AB%E3%81%8F%E3%81%A5%E3%81%8D](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%AB%E3%81%8F%E3%81%A5%E3%81%8D)
[https://www.joyokanji.com/radical-notes/130-flesh-radical-%E8%82%89-and-%E6%9C%88](https://www.joyokanji.com/radical-notes/130-flesh-radical-%E8%82%89-and-%E6%9C%88)
[https://everything.explained.today/Radical_130/](https://everything.explained.today/Radical_130/)
It’s actually a different radical (basically), which came from 肉, niku, meat
It is not actually 月, it is 肉 in it’s radical form (⺼).
It just looks like 月 due to common convention and also a bit of laziness. It also was not implemented well or uniformally into electronic media.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/肉
because it’s not the same kanji
Isn’t a bunch of this forgetting that Chinese originally used characters to have a meaning radical and a sound radical (or group of radicals)?
Not all radicals in a character are about the meaning.