The Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation has announced Japan’s kanji of the year.
This is used for “love.”
With 4,109 of the total of 85,322 votes, 愛 beat out the character in second place, 改 (reform), by nearly two to one.
I’ve always particularly enjoyed the first part of the etymology of this character:
The top was once æ—¡ jì ‘belch’, for obscure reasons; it has become 爫 (zhǎo) ‘hand’ plus 冖 (mì) ‘cover’. Below are 心 (xīn) ‘heart’ and 夂 (zhǐ) ‘walk slowly’ (a foot pointing down).
(Please remember not to confuse the etymology of a Chinese character with the etymology of the word its used to represent; they’re not the same thing.)
Some opponents of simplified characters are particularly annoyed that the simplified form of this character, 爱, omits the “heart” element and inserts “friend” (å‹ / yǒu) as the base. But as far as I know, no one has objected lately to the removal of “belch.”
traditional vs. simplified:
source: ï¼’ï¼ï¼ï¼•å¹´ã€Œä»Šå¹´ã®æ¼¢å—ã€å¿œå‹Ÿé›†è¨ˆçµæžœç™ºè¡¨, December 13, 2005.
Pinyin news » Blog Archive » Taiwan’s Chinese character of the year said
[...] For those who were disappointed with Japan’s choice of æ„› (Ã i in Mandarin — love) for the 1995 kanji of the year, there’s always Taiwan’s watered-down, copycat version, in which some 30,000 votes were registed on a Web site. [...]
han meng said
For 2006, it’s 命
site admin said
Thanks, Han Meng. I blogged on that already, but I’d forgotten to add a link here.
Pinyin news » Japan’s kanji of the year: 命 said
[...] I can’t seem to manage the enthusiasm to talk about the selection now, so maybe commenters can handle this one. (Pretty please!) But at least 命 is more interesting than the kanji of the year for 2005: æ„›. [...]
Pinyin news » Taiwan’s Chinese character of the year said
[...] those who were disappointed with Japan’s choice of æ„› (Ã i in Mandarin — love) for the 2005 kanji of the year, there’s always Taiwan’s watered-down, copycat version, in which some 30,000 votes were [...]