Anyone have SIMPLE examples of how a radical change of common & similar component kanji changes the meaning?

Like say 持つ vs 待つ the hand & slow walk radicals change while the 寺 stays the same

講 vs 構 the talk & tree radicals change while 井-on-top-of-再 remains the same

I’m thinking mostly へんs but any radical would be, you know, radical. ^((dude))

It’s been years since I’ve been doing this (as in, I don’t know where to start to dig up my Nelson’s from that former life)

5 comments
  1. I’m confused what you’re asking. What radicals changed. And you absolutely cannot infer meaning directly and exclusively from components.

    The exact genesis of why a particular character was invented is lost to time. The most we have is history of shapes changing like 肉 turning into 月 on many characters thus explaining all the body parts characters with moons in them like 肌, also referred to as the meat-moon にくづき radical.

  2. 亻(にんべん) to do with people

    扌(てへん) to do with hands

    氵(さんずい) to do with water

    土 (つちへん) to do with ground

    艹 (くさかんむり) to do with grass

    Was this the sort of thing you were looking for? 🤔

  3. I mean this is a super common phenomenon, you could list 100s of examples, for example for 寺・冓・是・軍, these are all in use in Japanese in some form or another:

    – 侍峙待恃持時特畤痔等詩
    – 媾搆構溝篝覯講購
    – 匙堤寔提醍鞮題
    – 揮暈暉渾煇琿皸皹葷褌諢輝運

    You’re going to have to be more specific with what exactly you want

    Also obligatory: The radical is only one component of a character and each character has exactly one radical, no more no less

  4. The absolute simplest that comes to mind is

    大 and 犬

    Running a close second

    井 and 丼

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