Radical 212
| 龍 | |
|---|---|
Radical 212 (U+2FD3)
| |
| 龍 (U+9F8D) "dragon" | |
| Pronunciations | |
| Pinyin: | lóng |
| Bopomofo: | ㄌㄨㄥˊ |
| Wade–Giles: | lung2 |
| Cantonese Yale: | lung4 |
| Jyutping: | lung4 |
| Japanese Kana: | リョー ・リュー ryō, ryū たつ tatsu |
| Sino-Korean: | 룡 ryong |
| Names | |
| Japanese name(s): | 竜 ryū |
| Hangul: | 용 yong |
| Stroke order animation | |
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Radical 212, 龍, 龙, or 竜 meaning "dragon" (龍部), is one of the two of the 214 Kangxi radicals that are composed of 16 strokes. The character arose as a stylized drawing of a Chinese dragon,[a] and refers to a version of the dragon in each East Asian culture:
- Chinese dragon, Lóng in Chinese
- Japanese dragon, Ryū or Tatsu in Japanese
- Korean dragon, Ryong or Yong in Korean
- Vietnamese dragon, Rồng in Vietnamese or Long in Sino-Vietnamese
It may also refer to the Dragon as it appears in the Chinese zodiac. It is also a common surname.
In the Kangxi Dictionary 14 characters (out of 40,000) are under this radical.
It occurs as a phonetic complement in some fairly common Chinese characters, for example 聾 = "deaf", which is composed of 龍 "dragon" and the "ear" 耳 radical, "a word with meaning related to ears and pronounced similarly to 龍: "dragon gives sound, ear gives meaning".
Evolution

Shang dynasty Bronze script
Western Zhou oracle script
Western Zhou Bronze script
Spring and Autumn period bronze script
Warring States period bronze script
Qin slip script
Large seal script character
Small seal script character
Qing dynasty Clerical script
Characters with Radical 212
| strokes | character |
|---|---|
| +0 | 龍 |
| +2 | 龎 |
| +3 | 龏 龐 |
| +4 | 龑 |
| +5 | 龒 |
| +6 | 龓 龔 龕 |
| +16 | 龖 |
| +17 | 龗 |
| +32 | 龘 |
| +48 | 𪚥 |
Literature
- Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1.
- Leyi Li: "Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases". Beijing 1993, ISBN 978-7-5619-0204-2
Notes
- ↑ 龍: bottom left: jaws (open downwards); top left: back of head; right side: body and legs; right bottommost stroke: tail
External links
Look up 龍 in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Radical 212.
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