Specific creatures in Chinese writing: horse, cattle, caprine and pig
Commonly used radicals that refer to specific categories of creatures
Last updated: 18 Apr 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”.)
In this article, we will discuss 4 radicals that indicate specific types of creatures.
- Radical ‘马’ (“horse”, ma3, radical 58)
- Radical ‘牛’ (“cattle”, niu2, radical 79)
- Radical ‘羊’ (“caprine”, yang2, radical 143)
- Radical ‘豕’ (“pig”, shi3, character 3688)
Radical ‘马’ (“horse”)
The radical ‘马’ (radical 58) is pictorially constructed. The earliest forms prominently feature the mane and the tail skirt (horses have hairs on tail).
Standardized writing strokes bring us to the Traditional form of the character.
The key components of the radical ‘马’ (“horse”, ma3) are: mane, tail and legs.
The mane has become a majestic square (blue highlight). The flashy tail is represented by a proudly extended “right-down-hook” long writing stroke (red highlight). As the mane and tail feature elaborately, there is little space left for the legs; the four legs simplify into four short strokes: “throw dot dot dot”.
In current (Simplified) form, the crowded mane becomes a clean box, and the four legs coalesce into a single “right” stroke.
Character construction with radical ‘马’
The radical ‘马’ (radical 58) indicates horse kind. ‘驴’ (“donkey”, lü2, character 941) features this radical because a donkey is a kind of horse. The radical ‘卢’ (originally “stove-like container”, lu2, character 230) provides phonetic construction.
(TODO: Link to character construction for ‘卢’ and ‘炉’. It’s a story complicated by simplification.)
Radical ‘牛’ (“cattle”)
The radical ‘牛’ (radical 79) is pictorially constructed. An early form shows “horns” and “ears” of a bull in frontal view.
In standardized writing strokes, the singular curve for the “horns” became “throw right” strokes.
The asymmetrical rendering of the “horns” is possibly also for collision avoidance with ‘半’ (“half”, ban4, character 307), which is pictorially constructed from literally “a large cattle that can be halved”.
Character construction with radical ‘牛’
Since there aren’t any characters for special types of cattle — “bison” is literally “American wild cattle” (“美国野牛”) — the radical ‘牛’ (radical 79) generally refers to “cattle” (rather than cattle kind); contrast this to radical ‘马’ (radical 58) in ‘驴’ (“donkey”, lü2) where the radical refers to horse kind.
One case where the radical refers to “cattle” is ‘犁’ (“plow”, li2, character 2314). Improvised radical ‘利’ (“sharp”, li4, character 763) provides both phonetic and semantic construction. Radical ‘牛’ (“cattle”, niu2, radical 79) would semantically mean that “plows are pulled by oxen”, though horses may have been used equivalently depending on availability.
(TODO: Link to character construction for ‘利’, which involves “crops” and “knife” and “to harvest”.)
The radical ‘牛’ also, in its most expanded sense, refers to “livestock”.
Take ‘牧’ (“shepherd”, mu4, character 1126), for example, which refers to “livestock” more than “cattle” (assuming bovines weren’t the only animals early shepherds knew). The right radical ‘攵’ (“to tap”, pu1, radical 82.b) is pictorially a hand holding a stick — perhaps indicating “a hand holding a shepherd’s crook”. The left radical ‘牜’ (“cattle”, niu2, radical 82.a) refers to “livestock” in this character construction.
Radical ‘羊’ (“caprine”)
“Caprine” are a type of animals we commonly think of as goats or sheep. Contrast “caprine” with “bovine” (cattle).
The history of the radical ‘羊’ (radical 143) seems to indicate that early Chinese encountered goats first.
The earliest form for ‘羊’ features a beard (red highlight) and short horns (blue highlight).
Goats have short horns that don’t impede exploratory behavior. Goats go to great lengths (and heights!) to browse for food, whereas sheep graze on plants near the ground. An easy way to distinguish the two is that goats are agile explorers whereas sheep are timid grazers.
At some point, the radical ‘羊’ (radical 143) came to resemble sheep.
Horns are longer, thicker and curved. A single “right” stroke may indicate ears. The beard seems to be retained, possibly due to a zoological confusion among ancient Chinese.
The beard simplified into a single “right” stroke (red highlight). The elaborate curved horns struck a moderate note (still large but not curved), possibly an attempt to describe both goats and sheep.
In current form, the horns are split into 2 segments: “dot throw” (upper strokes) and “right” (lower strokes). The upper segment seems to indicate the narrow, straight horns of goats. The lower segment may serve as adornment for the horns to indicate the elaborate horns of ram.
The Chinese word for goat is “山羊” (shan1 yang2, literally “mountain caprine”), and sheep is “绵羊” (mian2 yang2, literally “wadding caprine”). It is likely that early Chinese produced wadding (or batting) using wool.
Character construction with radical ‘羊’
While character ‘羊’ (yang2, character 530, radical 143) refers to “caprine”, the radical’s use in character construction sometimes refers to “sheep”.
The radical ‘羊’ can refer to “sheep” in character construction.
The reason that sheep have overwhelming tendency to flock together — bordering on xenophobia or neophobia — could be due to their loss of agility (compared to goats).
Without goats’ agility, sheep’s only defense might just be to strictly stick to their own kind. This fact is even reflected in character ‘群’ (“group”, qun2).
In character ‘群’ (“group”, qun2, character 3035), radical ‘羊’ (“sheep”, yang2, radical 143) seems to indicate that early Chinese noticed the flocking tendency of sheep. Improvised radical ‘君’ (“gentleman”, jun1, character 899) provides phonetic construction.
Even the character for “kind” (‘善’, shan4, character 2738) uses the docile nature of sheep to indicate “kindness”.
The top radical is the abbreviated radical ‘⺷’ (“sheep”, yang2, radical 143.b). The bottom radical is an abbreviation of ‘言’ (“speech”, yan2, radical 166).
The abbreviated radical ‘⺶’ (radical 143.a) can also mean “caprine”, or even “caprine-like”.
The character ‘羚’ (ling2, character 2399) appears in word “羚羊” that means “antelope”. Improvised radical ‘令’ (“to command”, ling4, character 282) provides phonetic construction. How antelopes are related to sheep or goat — a zoological study more complicated than Chinese family trees — is beyond our discussion of the Chinese language here. But antelopes sure look quite like caprines!
(TODO: Link to character construction for ‘令’, which involves “bells” and “legislature”.)
There are cases where simplification results in radicals that look identical to abbreviated radicals ‘⺷’ (radical 143.b) and ‘⺶’ (radical 143.a), but don’t mean “caprine”; we won’t discuss those cases here. (One such case is ‘着’, zhuo2, character 2398).
Radical ‘豕’ (“pig”)
If you’ve read the character evolution of ‘马’ (“horse”, ma3) above, you may by now be weary of the same “side view of animal standing on tail” paradigm. The earliest form for ‘豕’ (“pig”, shi3, character 3688) will strike you as generic and forgettable.
The current form also has the “head” and the “legs and tail”. However, there seems to be “wings” on the pig’s back (right side of character).
Those 2 extra strokes, “throw press”, might have been introduced for collision avoidance with ‘豸’ (“legendary beast”, zhi4, radical 163).
A good way to memorize this improvised radical ‘豕’ (“pig”, shi3, character 3688) is probably to imagine that “pigs can fly in ancient China”.
The role of pig ‘豕’ in character construction
The character ‘豕’ (“pig”, shi3, character 3688) is an old character, not in common use, for ‘猪’ (“pig”, zhu1, 2365).
As an improvised radical, ‘豕’ is an important part of some very commonly used characters.
Take ‘家’ (“home”, jia1, character 2099), for example.
Skipping the confusing official etymology, we can think of a “home” as a roof ‘宀’ (mian2, radical 48) under which there is food in the form of a pig ‘豕’ (shi3, character 3688).
Another common character ‘象’ (“elephant”, xiang4, character 2361) coincidentally seems to feature the ‘豕’ (“pig”, shi3) improvised radical, although not according to official etymology.
Consider that an elephant has a big head (red highlight) and long trunk (blue highlight). The rest of the elephant can be thought of as resembling a pig (overly large one).
