Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Today's kanji : 宮

The blue part describes "roof"
The red part describes "rooms"


A house with a lot of rooms.


Can you guess the meaning?

See the comments page for the answer!

6 comments:

  1. A house with a lot of rooms.

    宮 means shrine / palace

    For example…
    バッキンガム宮殿(bakkinngamu kyuuden): Buckingham palace
    明治神宮(meiji jinguu): Meiji shrine
    子宮(shikyuu): uterus

    This kanji is often used for Japanese family name, too.
    Like 宮下(miyashita)宮本(miyamoto)宮田(miyata)宮内(miyauchi)

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  2. I like that uterus is a baby palace. :)

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  3. Akiko-san,

    How are you? I wanted to read your blog when I was away last week but could not recall your web address. :P I think I'll take note of it so that I can read it next time when I'm away again.

    It's interesting to know how a single character means and is being constructed. :-)

    That reminds me of another kanji. It's the kanji for ofuro. It seems to me that ofuro doesn't have much room or space. How does the red part which describes "rooms" apply in this case? oshiete itadakenaideshoka.

    Have a nice day ahead!

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  4. >Carlie
    Thanks for the comments.
    I agree with your idea. (^o^)

    >momomochi
    Yes, 呂 of お風呂(ofuro : bath) is same as the red part of 宮(miya).
    I searched the history of 呂.
    呂 is from the shape of the backbone.
    It means that the red part of 宮 has different history from 呂.
    I cannot understand why we use 風 (wind) and 呂(backbone) for the word 風呂(furo : bathroom) anyway... (@_@)
    If I find out the answer, I'll put a comment here again!

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  5. Akiko-san,

    Thank you very much for your effort! It's much appreciated! :-)

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  6. Oh...............Really a lot's of room to Bath tube or hot tubs. It is big and small room also. You can take the experience with family the Japanese bath or hot tubs.

    hot tubs

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