Creating kanji or chinese symbols as an art-form

[x_teenagewasteland]

Does ANYONE know what this symbol means....

[furrykef]

This isn't really the thread for that question... but in any case, it's obviously 宗 with the final stroke left off. The basic meaning is "religion" or "sect".

[AJBryant]

Does ANYONE know what this symbol means....

Yes, it means "The tattooist doesn't know what he's doing and obviously doesn't know Japanese."'



Tony

[Infidel]

Does ANYONE know what this symbol means....

Yes, it means "The tattooist doesn't know what he's doing and obviously doesn't know Japanese."'



Tony

You know, it's kinda wierd. Ever since I've been writing kanji for the last few years during my writing drills, I've become very aware of some aspects of "good writing" whether or not I can practice them well. Specifically, the 3 things I am most alert to when writing are consistancy, balance, and spacing. I'm actually paying more attention to the spaces between the lines than the lines themselves.

So when I see that picture, before I even notice the missing stroke, I'm instead horrified that the kanji looks like it's about to fall over.

[kentaku_sama]

Here's one that will burn your eyes...




THE readings are

kun-yomi 　ぎょう　
on-yomi　　マ、ナ

it means "Military, or having to do with gun fire."

Here's a compound which means "US Navy"



here's another!



It means "Key hole, keeper"

readings : け　べ　うな・う　


　うなう means to unlatch a door, to click open the lock on a sliding door.

[furrykef]

That last one really doesn't look like it could have been a real kanji to me.

Anyway, as AJBryant pointed out, you ought to make up reasons for your kanji being composed the way they are. All the kanji that he came up with could have been real kanji.

- Kef

[Harisenbon]

That last one really doesn't look like it could have been a real kanji to me.

Anyway, as AJBryant pointed out, you ought to make up reasons for your kanji being composed the way they are.

I'm also curious about some of the pronunciations of the words.
I mean, if you're making new kanji to go with set words in a clever way (such as Tony was doing) it's one thing, but I don't get the point of taking an english word, writing it with new kanji that seem to have no bearing on the meaning, and then giving it a pronunciation that doesn't fit with how kanji are normally read.

For example, in your last one 米 is a standard kanji, which is read べい when it refers to america, not まい (米国）
I also don't see how we're supposed to get navy out of the kanji when there's no references to the sea, boats, etc.

No idea how you even came up with the last one.

Maybe you should give some explanations with the kanji as to how you came up with them? That might make it a bit more interesting and easier to understand why you're choosing the combinations that you are.

[furrykef]

In addition to what I said above (in fact this was part of my previous post until I saw that Harisenbon posted while I was editing this part): The Chinese did not just randomly combine radicals or swing their brushes around wildly when they needed a new word. Every stroke in a character has some sort of history behind it. By far the most common thing they did was combine a radical with a phonetic element (it's sort of like saying, "insect, rhymes with pants" to mean "ants"), but of course that's hard to do if you don't already know Chinese or a lot of on'yomi, so the next best thing is to combine radicals in the way that AJBryant did, where it's fairly clear how each radical contributes to the meaning.

- Kef

[astaroth]

Also I think in creating kanji one should be careful to keep the balance of the kanji. For that studying shodou a least a bit would not be a bad idea. A suggestion to help to create new kanji would be to start with easier one: try to combine a couple of radicals in a balanced way.

[AJBryant]

I have to say -- creating kanji requires more than just throwing things together and saying it's a new word. It would have to be something recognizable, something needed, and something people would *get*.

[kentaku_sama]

Does this one look ok?



on readings: プール
kun readings: いか
meaning(s): (swimming) pool



I think this makes since.


I think the pool symbol makes since because of the water radical, and it derives from the lake kanji: "池" with a pot lid so it's putting a pot lid on a lake or "containing the lake" so it means pool.

[astaroth]

I think that one is slightly better than the previous, but still the 水 radical feels a bit to big to me, making the kanji slightly unbalanced.
A humble suggestion is that before starting inventing kanji you might learn calligraphy to help you understand what we (mmh maybe only I) mean with balance and proportions.

I think this makes since.
I think the pool symbol makes since because of the water radical, and it derives from the lake kanji: "池" with a pot lid so it's putting a pot lid on a lake or "containing the lake" so it means pool.

I think you meant sense and not since.
Also isn't 池 more a pond than a lake? Lake I think is 湖 or 湖水 ...

[furrykef]

Also, プール cannot be considered an on'yomi because it's not from Chinese, nor could it possibly have come from Chinese. On'yomi means "sound reading" (from 音 sound and 読み reading; you probably know the verb 読む, to read), i.e., the kanji is read with the sound that it originally had in Chinese (aside from the fact that the sound has probably become mangled through the centuries).

I'm not sure it could be called a kun'yomi either... I don't really know if there's a word for kanji readings that don't come from Chinese or Japanese words.

- Kef

[kentaku_sama]

How about a　発明読み　(Invented reading) or something.

I know they're unbalanced but It's because I did it in paint, my computer's hard drive is full! I'm going to reload and delete everything with a system restore when I get a flash drive to put my files on that I wanna keep. Photoshop won't start up because it says the scratch disks are full, so I'm using paint at the moment. I really want to learn calligraphy but as for now I'm using the computer. When I use photoshop again I will create brushes for all the strokes and radicals in different scales.
ALso I will pay alot of attention to the proportions and balance next time.

[Yudan Taiteki]

I'm not sure it could be called a kun'yomi either... I don't really know if there's a word for kanji readings that don't come from Chinese or Japanese words.

プール is a Japanese word so that could be a kun-yomi in the same category as things like 頁（ページ) or 立（リットル).