Glyphs: “Shin”
Comments: 17
In response to a comment on a previous post about kanji tattoos, here are a few glyphs for the character shin – core, heart, marrow. (Jux, I hope this is the right “shin”!)
The lower panel shows the stroke order. Strokes begin at the numerals.
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Posted to General Rants • 2002.12.07 (Sat) • 22:07
Comments
Posted by milov 2002.12.08, 02:50
Are there penalties for painting the strokes out of order?
Posted by Nadeem 2002.12.08, 14:52
What did you use to draw the kanji?
Posted by jh 2002.12.08, 16:18
Milov — Penalties? The kanji police come and take your brush away. Not really, but it’s the equivalent of being a poor speller. You may know the particular character, and all of the strokes may actually be there, but if they haven’t been laid down in the right order you’re considered to have made a mistake.
Stroke order mistakes become pretty obvious once you stop ‘printing’ and start ‘writing.’
Nadeem — Just whipped it up in Photoshop.
Posted by Nadeem 2002.12.09, 01:08
I have tried to draw kanjis before using the gimp which is similar to photoshop but i was never able to have clean strokes like these. I am just terrible at using graphic programs, maybe i’ll find some tutorial om using the brush.
Posted by jh 2002.12.09, 11:15
Nadeem — Sorry, I wasn’t clear: those letters aren’t drawn — they’re Japanese fonts I have installed on my system. It’s not so clear in the graphic but you can see the font name in the top left of each panel. I used Hiragino Mincho, Koreisho, Gyosho and Kyokasho (not sure of the availability of these on other systems).
Posted by Ricardo Lamego 2002.12.09, 23:03
Oh, do you mean that all 4 glyphs are the same character in different fonts?
Posted by jh 2002.12.09, 23:24
Ricardo — Exactly. Four ‘versions’ (glyphs) of the same character (shin) from four different typefaces.
Posted by Ricardo Lamego 2002.12.10, 12:12
I can see some similarities but I would never tell that they’re the same character. I bet this gets even more interesting when you see handwritten text, no? =)
I think that some things I found hard to understand are clearer now. Our way of thinking (or reasoning) is highly conditioned by our native language. The language structure is a very important influence in our early years, molding the way we think / analyze / interpret information. Although that’s only a piece of a bigger puzzle, that explains why some peoples are more technical, other more practical and so on. When a language has such a complex written word and an equally complex spoken word like Japanese, mistakes like misinterpretations are prone to happen. Communication can sometimes be a real challenge.
Posted by pixelkitty 2002.12.10, 16:54
is there a glyph for “sha” and would it be correct to use sha and shin together …
Id love to have the kanji and not just the romanji …
thinking out loud!
Posted by jh 2002.12.11, 01:04
Hmm, I heard that thinking. Check your e-mail!
“Sha” and “shin” should be used together if you mean to say “photograph.” There’s no hyphen or anything required. It’s a different “shin” to the one above, though. “Sha” means “copy” and “shin” means “true” — thus a photograph is a ‘true copy.’
Posted by Anton Sherwood 2002.12.13, 17:29
Not that I’d know, or anything, but I believe the shin that means `heart’ is just the lower four strokes - a drawing of a heart, believe it or not. (Can’t find this seven-stroke character in my reference.)
Posted by jh 2002.12.13, 21:11
Anton — Correct. The one I show above means “core” (and is generally used quite literally, as in the core of an apple, although you can say of someone who has a strong heart “shin ga tsuyoi” — “he or she has a strong core/heart/centre”).
Remove the first three strokes and you have another “shin” (also read “kokoro”) which means “heart” (as in the organ which pumps blood as well as its figurative connotations).
Posted by Juxtapose 2003.07.21, 10:15
wow… i had actually completely forgotten i had commented here. then i go searching for tattoo information again, and what should i stumble across but this of all things. go figure blush anyways, thank you very much for the stroke order for this piece. it’s important to me to do it correctly.
- Jux
Posted by Erika 2003.09.18, 07:51
I’m looking for the kanji equivalent of “rebirth” as in the Phoenix’s myth type of rebirth. I am studying Japanese and Chinese and have toyed w/the idea of getting a Phoenix tattooed on my back but have opted for something more subtle than that. any help would be great! also, my studies are comprised of total immersion but I am in the romanji stage. does anyone know of any chat rooms for beginners? japanese preferably since my chinese is atrocious at the moment. i keep mangling it. (think chinese w/a spanish accent, yikes!)
Posted by Lisa 2004.06.30, 10:28
I want to help a friend who is considering getting inked. He wants “Master Chef” in Japanese (which I believe is referred to as Kanji - yes?). Can you help me with a translation or point me in the right direction, please?
Posted by joseph 2004.12.07, 10:17
For entirely diferent reasons, I also want to know the name given to a “master chef” There are so many different terms for chef that come up in the Eng-JP dictionaries, i want to make sure i use the correct one. thx.
Posted by anon 2006.11.17, 07:47
Uhm, guess is is way way late, but this character means “pith from a plant” which is why it has the “plant” radical on the top; the pith is sort of the “heart” of the plant.. You wouldn’t use it to mean “marrow” in the animal sense; you also wouldn’t use it to mean “core”, “heart”, “spirit”, these meanings likely come from a literal translation into pith and using the english connotations.
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