Between “clothes” ‘衣’ and “ritual” ‘示’ in Chinese writing
Last updated: 05 Mar 2021
This article is part of a compendium of 3500 characters.
(This article has been converted into a course at this Facebook group.)
Please ensure you know these foundational concepts before reading this article:
- Radicals: indexing radicals, abbreviated radicals, improvised radicals
- Writing strokes: our 7 Stroke Types nomenclature
(“right down throw press dot rise hook”) - Character construction principles: pictorial, semantic, phonetic, and combinations thereof.
Keep these 2 reference sources at hand when you read this article:
- 汉字部首表 (Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components)
(We will refer to this as “Table of Radicals”.) - 通用规范汉字表 (Table of General Standard Chinese Characters)
(We will refer to this as “Table of Characters”.)
The reason these two radicals — ‘衤’ (“clothes”, yi1, radical 117.a) and ‘礻’ (“ritual”, shi4, radical 97.a) — are discussed together is that they look terribly similar.
Along the way, we also discuss the character construction for characters ‘衣’ (“clothes”, yi1, character 520) and ‘示’ (“ritual”, shi4, character 194) in order to learn them easily.
Character construction for “clothes”, ‘衣’
As briefly discussed in Character Construction Strategies (section “Semantic Construction”), the character ‘衣’ (“clothes”, yi1) is constructed semantically.
However, the character ‘衣’ (“clothes”, yi1) was originally constructed pictorially. Looking at the character pictorially can give us a good mental link to the physical object it refers to. Note the “press” stroke highlighted in blue below; it looks like the “wrap” in ancient Chinese clothes.
Although ‘衣’ (“clothes”, yi1) was originally constructed pictorially, it’s current form does not lend well to a pictorial understanding. We fall back to a semantic construction.
In the semantic construction of character ‘衣’ (“clothes”, yi1), we see a cover (‘亠’) over 2 persons (‘从’, the original form that became heavily mutated in ‘衣’). The story: clothing is something that covers people from all walks of life.
Character construction for “ritual”, ‘示’
The meaning of character ‘示’ (shi4) isn’t exactly “ritual”, but instead “religious or ceremonial offering”. The reason I label it as “ritual” is because the radical form ‘礻’ (shi4, radical 97.a) often means “ritual” in character construction. With semantics out of the way, we investigate the character construction of ‘示’ (“ritual”, shi4). (There’ll be more semantics discussion on this later in the article.)
The character construction for ‘示’ (“ritual”, shi4) is pictorial. Relatively recent forms already offer us clear pictorial construction, so there’s no need to go through the entire evolutionary history of this character’s written form.
An earlier form clearly depicts an altar with ceremonial offerings (blue highlight below) on top.
Standardization of writing strokes and calligraphic conventions bring us to the current form for ‘示’ (“ritual”, shi4).
Relation to radicals
We now see how the characters ‘衣’ (“clothes”, yi1) and ‘示’ (“ritual”, shi4) are abbreviated into their radical form, which will also show us exactly how and why the two radicals ‘衤’ (“clothes”, yi, radical 117.a) and ‘礻’ (“ritual”, shi4, radical 97.a) are different.
The key difference is in the strokes on the right side (highlighted red below). The character ‘衣’ (“clothes”, yi1) has 2 strokes — “throw” and “press”.
The character ‘示’ (“ritual”, shi4) has only 1 stroke — “dot”.
The blue highlight above, plus the unhighlighted single stroke at the top, are similar for both characters — 3 strokes: “dot”, “right-throw”, “down”.
Semantics and Word Construction
The semantics for ‘衣’ is straightforward and literal: “clothes”.
The semantics for character ‘示’ (“to reveal”, shi4) requires some explanation because the character’s contemporary use doesn’t mean “ritual” but “to reveal”. The radical form ‘礻’ (shi4, radical 97.a) still means “ritual”, which we have to bear in mind during character construction.
The reason character ‘示’ (shi4) means “to reveal” is because ceremonial offerings are displayed openly, likely seen by everyone around. In ancient China, when a key duty of the monarchs was to supplicate the gods for beneficial weather, ceremonial offerings were probably ritualistically arranged for all to see that the king did his duty.
Many words feature character ‘示’ (shi4) meaning “to reveal”.
“展示”: where ‘展’ (“to unveil”, zhan3, character 2131) contributes to the word meaning “to exhibit”.
“暗示”: where ‘暗’ (“dark”, an4, character 2909) contributes to the word meaning “to hint”.
Yet, the character ‘示’ (shi4) when used as an improvised radical still means “ritual”. We look at an interesting word that features ‘示’ (“ritual”, shi4) throughout the word.
Word for “ritual” reveals ancient supplication forms
The word “祭祀” features character ‘示’ (“ritual”, shi4) as an improvised radical (in ‘祭’, ji4) and an abbreviated radical (in ‘祀’, si4).
What we pray with
The character ‘祭’ (“to supplicate”, ji4, character 2371) generally means to supplicate the gods or ancestral spirits for protection. From this character, we see the use of meat. Offerings in supplication are usually expensive items, hence the use of meat, a precious food.
The radical form for ‘肉’ (“meat”, rou4, character 443) looks exactly like ‘月’ (“moon”, yue4, character 150). Pictorially, radical ‘月’ (“meat”, rou4, radical 88) looks like a slab of pork ribs. (If you suspect that collision avoidance will occur, you’re right! We’ll discuss that in the next subsection.)
An early form of ‘祭’ (“to supplicate”, ji4) pictorially shows “meat” at the top-left and “hand” at the top-right (see written forms of “hand”). The bottom of the character is pictorially an altar with offerings on it, that is ‘示’ (“ritual”, shi4).
Standardization of writing strokes brings us to the character’s current form. The radical ‘月’ (“meat”, radical 88) is compacted by slanting and compression. Note that the radical ‘又’ (“hand”, radical 24) is further abbreviated by deleting the bottom-left segment to make room for ‘示’ (shi4).
Character construction for “meat”, ‘肉‘
While we’re still talking about using meat in supplication, let’s look at how the character form for “meat” (‘肉’, rou4, character 443) came to be.
Early forms for ‘肉’ (“meat”, rou4) were probably meant to look like a slab of meat on ribs.
Likely for collision avoidance with ‘月’ (“moon”, yue4), the form evolved to possibly look like ribs still attached to a spine.
Incidentally, there was a rather recent (Qing dynasty) attempt at collision avoidance even for the radical form of ‘肉’ (“meat”, rou4). Unfortunately, this collision avoidance resulted in insufficient visual difference with ‘月’ (“moon”, yue4), and was quickly abandoned.
The radical form for ‘肉’ (“meat”, rou4) is still visually identical to character ‘月’ (“moon”, yue4). Just bear that in mind when interpreting character construction with the radical ‘月’ (“meat”, rou4, radical 88), such as in character ‘肘’ (“elbow”, zhou3, character 806, see article on “hand” in Chinese writing, section “Improvised Radical ‘寸’ ”).
What we pray for
The character ‘祀’ (“supplication”, si4, character 891) actually has a meaning similar to character ‘祭’ (“to supplicate”, ji4, character 2371). However, I label ‘祀’ as “supplication” just to differentiate it from ‘祭’ (“to supplicate”, ji4).
Very often, Chinese words contain 2 characters that mean the same thing. This is likely due to the trend for Chinese vocabulary to be comprised of 2-character words. Instead of inventing ever more characters for an expanding vocabulary, combining characters became in vogue, particularly where it contributes to poetic meter. An example, aside from the one being discussed, is “累积” (“to accumulate”, lei3 ji1), where both characters mean “to accumulate”.
In character ‘祀’ (“supplication”, si4), we see that ancient Chinese probably prayed for children, descendants to continue the family legacy — I prefer not to think that babies were sacrificed in offerings! If not a semantic construction, the character ‘巳’ (“foetus”, si4, character 62) could have been a phonetic contribution to the character construction of ‘祀’ (“supplication”, si4).
Whether ‘巳’ (“foetus”, si4) contributes phonetically or semantically to ‘祀’ (“supplication”, si4), the radical ‘礻’ (“ritual”, shi4, radial 97.a) most certainly provides a semantic contribution indicating some form of ritual involving gods or ancestral spirits.
Standardization of writing strokes brings us to the current form for ‘巳’ (“foetus”, si4) and ‘祀’ (“supplication”, si4).
That wraps up our endeavor to easily differentiate between similar looking radicals ‘衤’ (“clothes”, yi1, radical 117.a) and ‘礻’ (“ritual”, shi4, radical 97.a). We took a close look at how and why their character forms morphed into these radicals.
Along the way, we also covered the character construction for ‘肉’ (“meat”, rou4, character 443), and for ‘祭’ (ji4, character 2371) and ‘祀’ (si4, character 891) which means “to supplicate”.
