神 This is the Japanese kanji for “kami”. But is it one character or two?

7 comments

1. It’s a single character. The different parts are called “radicals.”

2. It is one kaji/character.

   Kanji are made up of subsections called bushu that can divide the kanji into left+right, top+bottom, etc. If you look into the kodansha kanji dictionary it has a kanji organization system based on the bushu.

3. It’s one character.

   Chinese characters can be broken down into smaller elements. A common pattern you see (maybe 80%) have a part which gives a semantic meaning and a part which provides a phonetic guide, at least for the on’yomi.

   In 神, the left side is 示, which comes from the image of an altar (1). It usually has to do with religion, but not always.

   The right side, 申, provides the pronunciation of “しん.” Coincidentally it’s also related to “lightning” and may have referred to the divine as well (2).

   Together, 神 tells us that this character is something to do with the dine and pronounced “しん,” or “gods; great spirits.”

   (1) https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/示

   (2) https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/申

4. That is the realm of Chinese Philology.

   As you have noticed, 神 consists of“礻”and“申”, 礻is the variant of 示 , which means supernatural omen, or the act of displaying it; 申 is a pictograph, representing the lightning, and later derived to mean “announcing” (since lightning announce itself pretty well), as lightning was often believed to be the omen of god’s showing, it is used to describe diety themselves.

5. ﾈ申

6. It’s one character.

7. 早う勉強をせい。