Where does this extra stroke come from in the kanji for cicada?
I'm wondering where this extra stroke came from in the kanji for cicada that I have highlighted and would like an explanation since it doesn't match up with the kanji radicals on kanshudo
https://www.kanshudo.com/word/%E8%9D%89/1387080?oq=%E8%9D%89
3 replies
@x4740N It looks normal to me? In general, 虫 means bug/insect. According to Wiktionary, it originally derived from an ancient Chinese snake glyph: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%99%AB
I didn't know about the etymology before, but it makes sense (given that 蛇 means "snake").
According to the Radicals for 虫 the stroke that I've highlighted doesn't come from them so I'm wondering what it is there for since the only Radicals for it are "丶" and "中"
from what i know, the kanji for "insect" is a fundamental radical itself, but if you really want a mnemotechnic, i'd say that 口 is the insect mouth biting an arm ム (not the real meaning of that but it kinda looks like an arm)
based on this list