<p>recent studies called them components (部件). there're 1300+ basic component:</p>

<p><a href="http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/system_intro.jsp" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/system_intro.jsp</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-18T17:29:54.560Z
2018-06-18T17:29:54.560Z
水巷孑蠻
<p>Chinese characters were originally unique pictographic symbols depicting more or less the concept of the words they stood for. Over time as the written language evolved, many of these symbols were simplified and as they were simplified, different styles of writing and shorthand for parts of symbols became standardised.</p>
<p>For example, while 有 is written as combining  + 月 the actual origin of the symbol is the combination of  + ⺼.</p>
<p>As such, the components that make up a modern character may be <a href="https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/42685/is-there-a-reason-why-%e5%8d%88-and-%e5%b9%b4-look-so-similar">completely unrelated</a> to the original characters combined to create it.</p>
<p>E.g. while 犬 looks like 大 plus one stroke, they actually derive from independent symbols which (when simplified) have a similar appearance:</p>
<div class="s-table-container">
<table class="s-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: center;">Original character</th>
<th style="text-align: center;">Modern character</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/p9Dk4s.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/p9Dk4s.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></td>
<td style="text-align: center;">大</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/DZgigs.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/DZgigs.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></td>
<td style="text-align: center;">犬</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<p>This is somewhat analogous to how e.g. <em>woodchuck</em> in English looks like it comes from <em>wood</em> + <em>chuck</em>, but is actually from the Algonquian word <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/woodchuck#Etymology" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>wuchak</em></a>. To make a word easier to write, it is written using a common set of standardised subcomponents<sup>*</sup> shared across most words.</p>
<hr />
<sup>
<p><strong>Notes</strong></p>
<p>* Of course, as many subcomponents are themselves composed of other components, one can go further:</p>
<div class="s-table-container">
<table class="s-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Decomposed into the different...</th>
<th>Example</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>strokes</td>
<td>有 ← (一 + 丿) + (一 + 一 + 丨 + ) etc</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<p>But unless you are learning to write the characters stroke by stroke, this is about as useful as decomposing english words into the lines, circles, half circles etc that make up each letter.
</sup></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-01-21T11:10:13.027Z
Characters are not made up of radicals, in any sense of the word. You cannot decompose even the most basic of characters, like 可 or 年, into radicals.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-01-21T13:12:41.190Z
@dROOOze is 可 not made of the following radicals, though? 口⼀⼅
大胳膊雅各布
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-01-21T17:20:29.667Z
I mean, if you want to look at it that way, then 年 is made up of the radicals 丿一一丨一丨. “Radical” decomposition or “orthographic decomposition” is overly complicated and offers very little.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-01-21T00:25:41.370Z
2023-12-28T04:14:29.160Z
2023-12-28T04:14:29.160Z
大胳膊雅各布
<p>It is true, here is an example</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>泪</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This character is composed of 氵 and 目，which represent water and eye respectively, and the character means tear!</p>

<p>In more traditional writings, this would become more obvious. In fact, if you look at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ancient writings</a>, you will find out that Chinese origins from actual drawing of stuff around us.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-18T17:36:01.520Z
2018-06-18T17:36:01.520Z
zyy
<p>Naïve visual decomposition does not work for a lot of the time, so I’ll just demonstrate some examples.</p>

<p>Firstly, your own:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>做 is comprised of 作 and 攵. 乍 was graphically corrupted into 古, but that’s not it’s original form. 作 is in turn decomposable into 亻 and 乍.</p></li>
<li><p>你 is decomposable into 亻and 尔.</p></li>
<li><p>吃 is decomposable into 口 and 乞. 乞 is not decomposable; the way you did it is equivalent to “decomposing” the Roman letter “d” into “c” and “l”.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Next, some non-decomposable characters that look like they’re decomposable:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>龍, an entire picture of a dragon</p></li>
<li><p>能, an entire picture of a bear</p></li>
<li><p>魚, an entire picture of a fish</p></li>
<li><p>它, an entire picture of a snake</p></li>
<li><p>气, a picture of streaks of clouds in the sky</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Finally, some decomposable characters which look like they’re non-decomposable, or have unexpected decompositions:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>之, decomposable into 止 and 一</p></li>
<li><p>戍, decomposable into 人 and 戈</p></li>
<li><p>喪, decomposable into 桑, 2x口, and 亾</p></li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-19T06:02:33.010Z
Why do you say, that 能 is not decomposable, when it is obviously constists of ㄙ月匕匕 which are known and frequent parts? This is the question! How "non-decomposability" can be justified in such situations? Character genesis is not the same as their shape! Even if 作 historically transformed to 古 it doesn't make them the same character! I agree, that decomposition of d into c and l is strange, but decomposition of i into stick and dot is not, and even decomposition of w into v v is not strange it is even called "double v".
Dims
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-19T06:15:10.117Z
@Dims well, anyone's free to decompose characters in any way they like. Why stop at the decomposition that you suggested? We can even go down further and say that everything including ㄙ月匕古 is decomposable into one of 20 or so [strokes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_\(CJKV_character\)). I don't see the usefulness of this kind of decomposition though, but you're free to use whatever you feel is most helpful for your purposes.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-19T06:21:41.313Z
The question is not about my freedom, but about problem domain. Of course you can decompose into strokes or even pixels, but parts I mention are better because they are complex constructions repeating in different characters many times.
Dims
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-19T06:26:33.240Z
@Dims If you've already defined the problem domain (which seems like graphical decomposition) then there's no further question to be asked. You can write a simple algorithm to just detect graphically connecting regions of a character and process thousands of character images to retrieve a rapid decomposition that way. To understand how the characters work as part of Chinese language usage, however, does not overlap with such a decomposition method, and that would be my preferred problem domain.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-19T06:31:02.653Z
@Dims I think there was someone on here that sells books that, decomposing in the method you're suggesting \(see the OP of [this](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22750/what-is-the-best-way-to-memorize-chinese-characters) "question"\).
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-19T21:50:58.903Z
@drooze you're answering to a different question: "is the geometric decomposition of a Chinese character always historically true to the earliest known form of that character?"; the answer to that question is of course no. But on the surface you totally can decompose 能 into 厶⺝匕匕, even though it is derived from a single pictorial sign. Yes, it is not objectively clear where exactly to stop; that's a dilemma that afflicts all sciences. Water is composed of H2O; ultimately that's protons, neutrons, electrons, which are in turn quarks, gluons &c. Makes still sense to think of water as H and O.
John Frazer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-20T03:06:36.037Z
@JohnFrazer I’m afraid I don’t know how to reply. I’ve already taken the position that (1) anyone is free to decompose characters in any way they like and (2) decomposing it purely based on graphics objectively does not provide insight into the character’s function in language (unlike your H2O example). Nobody’s an ultimate arbitrator on what’s valid or not. I believe that a *problem domain* (*graphics*) that has very little to do with the language itself is genuinely unhelpful for understanding the language. This decomp method can be helpful for rare character lookup and font generation.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-20T03:19:50.793Z
@JohnFrazer also, unlike the graphical decomposition method that you aptly described with `it is not objectively clear where to stop`, a decomposition based on glyph origins does have an objectively clear stopping point; you stop when further breakdown no longer provides insight into the character’s semantic or phonetic function. Such a breakdown also matches exactly how the character is thought to be constructed when it was first created.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-20T09:32:57.207Z
I'm not saying your method is wrong, I'm saying the graphical analysis is one thing, historical reconstruction another. The OP is, IMHO, concerned with the former, not the latter; the link between the two is, as you show, a varied and not always obvious one. I'd like to add that the historical reconstruction process is much less objective and much more contested than you make it look per your latest comment. Let's face it, when a new OBI inscription is found and another treatise written, all our 'facts' may become mood (ex. 東 is not sun+tree, but a picture of a bundle, according to some).
John Frazer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-20T09:36:56.670Z
@JohnFrazer If the OP is concerned with the former, then there is no real question here to do with the Chinese language. The question might as well be asked at an image processing forum. As to 東, nobody says it’s a sun and a tree anymore, because there’s no archaeological or linguistic evidence to suggest it. You seem to be under the impression that deciphering OBI is a bit random; I assure you that that’s not the case.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-20T12:49:44.970Z
I think you're putting a bit of too much faith in the capabilities of automated image processing here, and a bit too much faith in the definiteness of conclusions drawn in the latest and greatest papers on OBI. Inquiries into the nature and structure of Chinese writing & into practical Chinese lexicography is, as a field of study, at least 2000 years old, and we're still turning out new stuff each year. There's no evidence to strongly suggest we're done at this point. Also AFAIK no software exists that does sensible automated graphical analysis of CJK characters, that's purely hypothetical.
John Frazer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-20T13:03:59.433Z
@JohnFrazer I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, most academic disciplines try to build/determine successively better models to determine reality; that does not mean that since we don't have the real answer, we substitute it with one that doesn't match the discipline at all with the only redeeming feature being that it's internally consistent. The core issue still remains: Graphical decomposition of characters has very little to do with the Chinese language. Splitting 能 into ㄙ月匕匕 is like splitting the word `endearment` into `enc` and `learment` - it's completely nonsensical.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-20T16:32:37.387Z
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/79153/discussion-between-john-frazer-and-droooze).
John Frazer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-18T17:45:56.860Z
2018-06-18T18:05:17.270Z
2018-06-18T18:05:17.270Z
dROOOze
<p>I found that many (most?) Chinese characters look like they're composed of more primitive ones, like:</p>
<p>做　＝　亻十口夂</p>
<p>你　＝　亻尔</p>
<p>吃　＝　卩乙</p>
<p>and so on.</p>
<p>I this a real phenomenon or just my European imagination?</p>
<p>If it is not real then why? If it is real, then what is the name of this phenomenon? I know there are &quot;radicals&quot;, but I'm not sure all components I see belong to the set of radicals.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-18T17:22:26.203Z
A comprehensive title which deals with this is Qiu Xigui’s Chinese Writing. It takes a lengthy book to explain.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-18T17:24:34.807Z
@droooze just "yes" or "no" and if "no", then "why"
Dims
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-18T17:27:25.197Z
It’s not a generic yes or no, it depends on the character you’re looking at. So it’s sometimes a yes and sometimes a no and sometimes an illusion due to millenia of script evolution.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-18T17:35:13.667Z
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification
Stumpy Joe Pete
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-19T04:37:13.277Z
Moreover, they all do, and here's a huge repo of decompositions https://github.com/amake/cjk-decomp
Vitaly Osipov
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-19T21:33:45.960Z
@drooze What do you want to say? The OP asked a clear question and came up with some clear examples that look simple and correct. Are these examples valid or not? Does 做 decompose into 亻十口夂 or not?
John Frazer
<characters><radicals><character-components>
Chinese character decomposition
# Chinese character decomposition

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-06-18)

I found that many (most?) Chinese characters look like they're composed of more primitive ones, like:

做　＝　亻十口夂

你　＝　亻尔

吃　＝　卩乙

and so on.

I this a real phenomenon or just my European imagination?

If it is not real then why? If it is real, then what is the name of this phenomenon? I know there are "radicals", but I'm not sure all components I see belong to the set of radicals.

**Tags:** characters, radicals, character-components
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: A comprehensive title which deals with this is Qiu Xigui’s Chinese Writing. It takes a lengthy book to explain.  
> **username_0**: @droooze just "yes" or "no" and if "no", then "why"  
> **username_1**: It’s not a generic yes or no, it depends on the character you’re looking at. So it’s sometimes a yes and sometimes a no and sometimes an illusion due to millenia of script evolution.  
> **username_2**: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification  
> **username_3**: Moreover, they all do, and here's a huge repo of decompositions https://github.com/amake/cjk-decomp  
> **username_4**: @drooze What do you want to say? The OP asked a clear question and came up with some clear examples that look simple and correct. Are these examples valid or not? Does 做 decompose into 亻十口夂 or not?  

---

## 4 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2018-06-18. Score: 4

recent studies called them components (部件). there're 1300+ basic component:

<http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/system_intro.jsp>


---

### Answer by username_6 on 2021-01-21. Score: 4

Chinese characters were originally unique pictographic symbols depicting more or less the concept of the words they stood for. Over time as the written language evolved, many of these symbols were simplified and as they were simplified, different styles of writing and shorthand for parts of symbols became standardised.

For example, while 有 is written as combining + 月 the actual origin of the symbol is the combination of + ⺼.

As such, the components that make up a modern character may be [completely unrelated](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/42685/is-there-a-reason-why-%e5%8d%88-and-%e5%b9%b4-look-so-similar) to the original characters combined to create it.

E.g. while 犬 looks like 大 plus one stroke, they actually derive from independent symbols which (when simplified) have a similar appearance:

| Original character | Modern character |
| --- | --- |
| [enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/p9Dk4s.png) | 大 |
| [enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/DZgigs.png) | 犬 |

This is somewhat analogous to how e.g. *woodchuck* in English looks like it comes from *wood* + *chuck*, but is actually from the Algonquian word [*wuchak*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/woodchuck#Etymology). To make a word easier to write, it is written using a common set of standardised subcomponents\* shared across most words.

---

**Notes**

\* Of course, as many subcomponents are themselves composed of other components, one can go further:

| Decomposed into the different... | Example |
| --- | --- |
| strokes | 有 ← (一 + 丿) + (一 + 一 + 丨 + ) etc |

But unless you are learning to write the characters stroke by stroke, this is about as useful as decomposing english words into the lines, circles, half circles etc that make up each letter.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Characters are not made up of radicals, in any sense of the word. You cannot decompose even the most basic of characters, like 可 or 年, into radicals.  
> **username_6**: @dROOOze is 可 not made of the following radicals, though? 口⼀⼅  
> **username_1**: I mean, if you want to look at it that way, then 年 is made up of the radicals 丿一一丨一丨. “Radical” decomposition or “orthographic decomposition” is overly complicated and offers very little.  

---

### Answer by username_7 on 2018-06-18. Score: 3

It is true, here is an example

> 泪

This character is composed of 氵 and 目，which represent water and eye respectively, and the character means tear!

In more traditional writings, this would become more obvious. In fact, if you look at [ancient writings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script), you will find out that Chinese origins from actual drawing of stuff around us.


---

### Answer by username_1 on 2018-06-18. Score: 2

Naïve visual decomposition does not work for a lot of the time, so I’ll just demonstrate some examples.

Firstly, your own:

* 做 is comprised of 作 and 攵. 乍 was graphically corrupted into 古, but that’s not it’s original form. 作 is in turn decomposable into 亻 and 乍.
* 你 is decomposable into 亻and 尔.
* 吃 is decomposable into 口 and 乞. 乞 is not decomposable; the way you did it is equivalent to “decomposing” the Roman letter “d” into “c” and “l”.

Next, some non-decomposable characters that look like they’re decomposable:

* 龍, an entire picture of a dragon
* 能, an entire picture of a bear
* 魚, an entire picture of a fish
* 它, an entire picture of a snake
* 气, a picture of streaks of clouds in the sky

Finally, some decomposable characters which look like they’re non-decomposable, or have unexpected decompositions:

* 之, decomposable into 止 and 一
* 戍, decomposable into 人 and 戈
* 喪, decomposable into 桑, 2x口, and 亾

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Why do you say, that 能 is not decomposable, when it is obviously constists of ㄙ月匕匕 which are known and frequent parts? This is the question! How "non-decomposability" can be justified in such situations? Character genesis is not the same as their shape! Even if 作 historically transformed to 古 it doesn't make them the same character! I agree, that decomposition of d into c and l is strange, but decomposition of i into stick and dot is not, and even decomposition of w into v v is not strange it is even called "double v".  
> **username_1**: @Dims well, anyone's free to decompose characters in any way they like. Why stop at the decomposition that you suggested? We can even go down further and say that everything including ㄙ月匕古 is decomposable into one of 20 or so [strokes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_\(CJKV_character\)). I don't see the usefulness of this kind of decomposition though, but you're free to use whatever you feel is most helpful for your purposes.  
> **username_0**: The question is not about my freedom, but about problem domain. Of course you can decompose into strokes or even pixels, but parts I mention are better because they are complex constructions repeating in different characters many times.  
> **username_1**: @Dims If you've already defined the problem domain (which seems like graphical decomposition) then there's no further question to be asked. You can write a simple algorithm to just detect graphically connecting regions of a character and process thousands of character images to retrieve a rapid decomposition that way. To understand how the characters work as part of Chinese language usage, however, does not overlap with such a decomposition method, and that would be my preferred problem domain.  
> **username_1**: @Dims I think there was someone on here that sells books that, decomposing in the method you're suggesting \(see the OP of [this](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22750/what-is-the-best-way-to-memorize-chinese-characters) "question"\).  
> **username_4**: @drooze you're answering to a different question: "is the geometric decomposition of a Chinese character always historically true to the earliest known form of that character?"; the answer to that question is of course no. But on the surface you totally can decompose 能 into 厶⺝匕匕, even though it is derived from a single pictorial sign. Yes, it is not objectively clear where exactly to stop; that's a dilemma that afflicts all sciences. Water is composed of H2O; ultimately that's protons, neutrons, electrons, which are in turn quarks, gluons &c. Makes still sense to think of water as H and O.  
> **username_1**: @JohnFrazer I’m afraid I don’t know how to reply. I’ve already taken the position that (1) anyone is free to decompose characters in any way they like and (2) decomposing it purely based on graphics objectively does not provide insight into the character’s function in language (unlike your H2O example). Nobody’s an ultimate arbitrator on what’s valid or not. I believe that a *problem domain* (*graphics*) that has very little to do with the language itself is genuinely unhelpful for understanding the language. This decomp method can be helpful for rare character lookup and font generation.  
> **username_1**: @JohnFrazer also, unlike the graphical decomposition method that you aptly described with `it is not objectively clear where to stop`, a decomposition based on glyph origins does have an objectively clear stopping point; you stop when further breakdown no longer provides insight into the character’s semantic or phonetic function. Such a breakdown also matches exactly how the character is thought to be constructed when it was first created.  
> **username_4**: I'm not saying your method is wrong, I'm saying the graphical analysis is one thing, historical reconstruction another. The OP is, IMHO, concerned with the former, not the latter; the link between the two is, as you show, a varied and not always obvious one. I'd like to add that the historical reconstruction process is much less objective and much more contested than you make it look per your latest comment. Let's face it, when a new OBI inscription is found and another treatise written, all our 'facts' may become mood (ex. 東 is not sun+tree, but a picture of a bundle, according to some).  
> **username_1**: @JohnFrazer If the OP is concerned with the former, then there is no real question here to do with the Chinese language. The question might as well be asked at an image processing forum. As to 東, nobody says it’s a sun and a tree anymore, because there’s no archaeological or linguistic evidence to suggest it. You seem to be under the impression that deciphering OBI is a bit random; I assure you that that’s not the case.  
> **username_4**: I think you're putting a bit of too much faith in the capabilities of automated image processing here, and a bit too much faith in the definiteness of conclusions drawn in the latest and greatest papers on OBI. Inquiries into the nature and structure of Chinese writing & into practical Chinese lexicography is, as a field of study, at least 2000 years old, and we're still turning out new stuff each year. There's no evidence to strongly suggest we're done at this point. Also AFAIK no software exists that does sensible automated graphical analysis of CJK characters, that's purely hypothetical.  
> **username_1**: @JohnFrazer I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, most academic disciplines try to build/determine successively better models to determine reality; that does not mean that since we don't have the real answer, we substitute it with one that doesn't match the discipline at all with the only redeeming feature being that it's internally consistent. The core issue still remains: Graphical decomposition of characters has very little to do with the Chinese language. Splitting 能 into ㄙ月匕匕 is like splitting the word `endearment` into `enc` and `learment` - it's completely nonsensical.  
> **username_4**: Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/79153/discussion-between-john-frazer-and-droooze).  

---

