<p>I'm also finding conflicting sources. For example according to the reference work <em><a href="http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%AB%B8">Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary</a></em> it's also 羊 + 女.</p>

<p>Similarly, still in the <a href="http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%AC%FC">same work</a>, 美 is 羊 + 大.</p>

<p>Often when characters are combined they are slightly changed to make the character more compact and I think that is what has happened here.</p>

<p>However when I look <a href="http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&amp;char=%E5%A7%9C">at the following online Classical Chinese dictionary they say</a> that it is ⺷ + 女.
However if you look at the <a href="http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&amp;char=%E7%BE%8A">seal script of 羊 on the same site</a> and compare it with the seal script of 姜 you'll clearly see the 羊. Also from <a href="http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&amp;char=%E2%BA%B7">the ⺷ page</a>, one can  interpret  that the character ⺷ isn't that old. So it seems more likely that it indeed comes from 羊. </p>

<p>I could be wrong about this, but I think the average Chinese doesn't care about how the character is made up. Their way of learning them is to drill them (rote learning), not by trying to see how there are made-up.</p>

<p>EDIT: I have been doing some more searching and actually ⺷ is 羊, but in radical form. See for example <a href="http://alturl.com/rfvzq">unicodelookup.com</a>.
So it doesn't exist as a separate character, but is used when it is used as a radical. Similarly as 手 is changed when used as a radical in 打.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-04T17:07:11.180Z
The link to unicodelookup is apparently altered automatically after submitting it and turns into an incorrect link. Is should be unicodelookup.com/#⺷/1
BertR
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-04T17:09:08.993Z
I was able to correct it in the original submission
BertR
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-04T17:14:25.903Z
BertR, I fixed the link and slightly changed one or two to make the text feel more fluid. :)
Alenanno
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-06-20T17:53:12.750Z
I think it's worth pointing out that ``美`` (and ``姜`` as well, I believe) were just pictograms of people with headdresses. The analysis of being 羊/⺷ + whatever is post-hoc. However, it's still a relevant what a.) regular people and b.) dictionaries usually say.
Stumpy Joe Pete
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-04T15:02:19.557Z
2012-05-04T17:13:48.400Z
2012-05-04T17:13:48.400Z
BertR
<p>In short, ⺷ could be a variant of 羊 in the past, and is the radical form of 羊 when written <em>in the upper</em> of a character.</p>

<p>Historically, ⺷ could be used as 羊 with the same meaning and pronunciation. 《字彙補》, a Qing Dynasty dictionary, gave the definition 『⺷，疑羊字之訛。』 that ⺷ could be a (possibly erroneous) variant of 羊. While Jin Dynasty's 《四聲篇海》 thinks that the pronunciation should be ren4 but still has the same meaning (『⺷，如甚切。稍長亦羊也。』).</p>

<p>As BertR has mentioned, ⺷ is the radical form of 羊. But it is only used when written in the upper part of a character, e.g., 美, 姜, 恙, and 義. It is not used in characters like 鮮, 群, 羚, or 羶.</p>

<p><strong>Footnote:</strong> The definitions are from <a href="http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw" rel="nofollow" title="The Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants — Ministry of Education, Taiwan">《異體字字典》</a> published by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan. Please note that it's a traditional Chinese website in Big-5 encoding rather than Unicode.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-05T17:03:20.793Z
Welcome to the site Hans! :) Really a good quality answer and from a new user! Hope you stick around with us!
Alenanno
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-06T08:12:53.673Z
Glad to help. I just bumped into the site this week and found it interesting — sometimes hard, though — to discuss my language with people from different cultures. Please feel free to correct my sentences as I'm less skilled in English.
Hans Tzou
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-05T07:46:21.283Z
2012-05-05T07:46:21.283Z
Hans Tzou
<p>The top part of「姜」is「羊」, serving as a phonetic component, and the bottom part is「女」, serving as a semantic component. It was originally used as a proper noun.</p>

<p>This is where the clarity ends if you rely on things like popular etymology or non-up to date resources to check up similar-looking characters, which will frequently provide conflicting or obscure explanations for glyph origins (although most resources will decompose「姜」correctly).</p>

<p>In general, Chinese character components have changed heavily over the years, with different components sometimes merging into one form. Most references that you'll see will not give you a clear breakdown of individual characters, and the times they get an individual component「X」right do not explain other components which have merged into the same shape as「X」.</p>

<hr>

<p>As others have correctly stated, 「⺷」is how we write「羊」at the top in the modern form. There is one more (actually two, but they're very similar graphical variations of each other) shape morph of「羊」to be aware of, and that is how it's written at the top-<strong>left</strong>:</p>

<ul>
<li>「⺶」(PRC usually uses this form)</li>
<li>「⿱⿰丿X」, where X is a placeholder (Other places usually use this form)</li>
</ul>

<p>I won't talk about characters which contain the full form of「羊」here, like「咩」or「羶」, because they're fairly obvious. Characters which <em>really</em> contain the graphical variants of「羊」described above can be split into the following:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Characters which had a hint of the meaning <em>sheep</em>. Examples:</p>

<ul>
<li>「羔」, a lamb</li>
<li>「義」, morality</li>
<li>「善」, a meal (now written「膳」)</li>
<li>「犧」, to sacrifice</li>
<li>「羞」, (original meaning) an offering</li>
</ul></li>
<li><p>Characters which had a hint of the sound ancestral to <strong>yáng</strong>. Examples:</p>

<ul>
<li>「姜」, <strong>jiāng</strong></li>
<li>「羕」, <strong>yàng</strong></li>
<li>「恙」, <strong>yàng</strong></li>
</ul></li>
<li><p>Characters which uses「羊」for both sound and meaning. Examples:</p>

<ul>
<li>「羌」, <strong>qiāng</strong>, the historical <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiang_(historical_people)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Qiang</a> tribes which were constantly at war with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Shang dynasty</a>. These people were perceived by the Shang to wear ram horns as a sort of decorative or ritualistic headwear.</li>
<li>「養」, <strong>yǎng</strong>, (original meaning) to herd sheep</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<p>There are many other characters which <em>don't really</em> contain「羊」, but was something else that eventually morphed into「」, 「⺶」, or「⿱⿰丿X」. Examples:</p>

<ul>
<li>「着」, large graphical corruptions of what was originally「箸」</li>
<li>「美」, top was originally a headdress</li>
<li>「差」, top was originally「木」</li>
<li>「盖」, top was originally「去」</li>
</ul>

<hr>

<p>References:</p>

<ul>
<li>《古文字詁林》, 1999</li>
<li>季旭昇《說文新證》, 2014</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-15T19:31:44.783Z
2018-06-15T19:49:12.450Z
2018-06-15T19:49:12.450Z
dROOOze
<p>If you look at the character 姜, it seems like the top part is ⺷ and the bottom is 女, however some sources, <a href="http://chinese-characters.org/meaning/5/59DC.html#.T6PTN8QtiDp" rel="nofollow">Chinese-Characters</a>, <a href="http://hanzijs.com/character/%E5%A7%9C" rel="nofollow">HanziJS</a> and <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons%3aChinese_characters_decomposition" rel="nofollow">Wikimedia Commons</a> show the phonetic radical as 羊. </p>

<p>I'm the creator of HanziJS and use the data created by <a href="http://groovy.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=cjk-decomp" rel="nofollow">Gavin Grover</a> for decomposition. This is why I'm asking. I want to understand why there could be a discrepancy in the decomposition.</p>

<p>The Chinese Characters's page also mentions a term "apparent" components, which seems to refer to the original decomposition of the characters. However, in terms of phonetic radicals, it seems 羊 would be more suitable in determining the pronunciation than ⺷, which seems to be an archaic character. The <a href="http://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%F0%A6%8D%8C" rel="nofollow">Chinese wiktionary page</a> says that, ⺷, is made up of 羊. Now it's getting confusing!</p>

<p>I have heard that some have also suggest that the top part is 美?</p>

<p>What would be the correct decomposition and why are there discrepancies? What will a native Chinese person say when asked what components 姜 is made up of?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-04T16:56:49.010Z
Welcome to Stack Exchange, CL. The character you're asking about didn't seem to be encoded properly, so I guessed that it was ⺷. You can roll back my edit if I'm mistaken.
Don Kirkby
<characters><radicals>
What is the top part of 姜 and why does it differ?
# What is the top part of 姜 and why does it differ?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2012-05-04)

If you look at the character 姜, it seems like the top part is ⺷ and the bottom is 女, however some sources, [Chinese-Characters](http://chinese-characters.org/meaning/5/59DC.html#.T6PTN8QtiDp), [HanziJS](http://hanzijs.com/character/%E5%A7%9C) and [Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons%3aChinese_characters_decomposition) show the phonetic radical as 羊.

I'm the creator of HanziJS and use the data created by [Gavin Grover](http://groovy.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=cjk-decomp) for decomposition. This is why I'm asking. I want to understand why there could be a discrepancy in the decomposition.

The Chinese Characters's page also mentions a term "apparent" components, which seems to refer to the original decomposition of the characters. However, in terms of phonetic radicals, it seems 羊 would be more suitable in determining the pronunciation than ⺷, which seems to be an archaic character. The [Chinese wiktionary page](http://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%F0%A6%8D%8C) says that, ⺷, is made up of 羊. Now it's getting confusing!

I have heard that some have also suggest that the top part is 美?

What would be the correct decomposition and why are there discrepancies? What will a native Chinese person say when asked what components 姜 is made up of?

**Tags:** characters, radicals

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Welcome to Stack Exchange, CL. The character you're asking about didn't seem to be encoded properly, so I guessed that it was ⺷. You can roll back my edit if I'm mistaken.  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2012-05-04. Score: 5

I'm also finding conflicting sources. For example according to the reference work *[Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary](http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%AB%B8)* it's also 羊 + 女.

Similarly, still in the [same work](http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%AC%FC), 美 is 羊 + 大.

Often when characters are combined they are slightly changed to make the character more compact and I think that is what has happened here.

However when I look [at the following online Classical Chinese dictionary they say](http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&char=%E5%A7%9C) that it is ⺷ + 女.
However if you look at the [seal script of 羊 on the same site](http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&char=%E7%BE%8A) and compare it with the seal script of 姜 you'll clearly see the 羊. Also from [the ⺷ page](http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&char=%E2%BA%B7), one can interpret that the character ⺷ isn't that old. So it seems more likely that it indeed comes from 羊.

I could be wrong about this, but I think the average Chinese doesn't care about how the character is made up. Their way of learning them is to drill them (rote learning), not by trying to see how there are made-up.

EDIT: I have been doing some more searching and actually ⺷ is 羊, but in radical form. See for example [unicodelookup.com](http://alturl.com/rfvzq).
So it doesn't exist as a separate character, but is used when it is used as a radical. Similarly as 手 is changed when used as a radical in 打.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: The link to unicodelookup is apparently altered automatically after submitting it and turns into an incorrect link. Is should be unicodelookup.com/#⺷/1  
> **username_2**: I was able to correct it in the original submission  
> **username_3**: username_2, I fixed the link and slightly changed one or two to make the text feel more fluid. :)  
> **username_4**: I think it's worth pointing out that ``美`` (and ``姜`` as well, I believe) were just pictograms of people with headdresses. The analysis of being 羊/⺷ + whatever is post-hoc. However, it's still a relevant what a.) regular people and b.) dictionaries usually say.  

---

### Answer by username_5 on 2012-05-05. Score: 4

In short, ⺷ could be a variant of 羊 in the past, and is the radical form of 羊 when written *in the upper* of a character.

Historically, ⺷ could be used as 羊 with the same meaning and pronunciation. 《字彙補》, a Qing Dynasty dictionary, gave the definition 『⺷，疑羊字之訛。』 that ⺷ could be a (possibly erroneous) variant of 羊. While Jin Dynasty's 《四聲篇海》 thinks that the pronunciation should be ren4 but still has the same meaning (『⺷，如甚切。稍長亦羊也。』).

As username_2 has mentioned, ⺷ is the radical form of 羊. But it is only used when written in the upper part of a character, e.g., 美, 姜, 恙, and 義. It is not used in characters like 鮮, 群, 羚, or 羶.

**Footnote:** The definitions are from [《異體字字典》](http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw "The Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants — Ministry of Education, Taiwan") published by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan. Please note that it's a traditional Chinese website in Big-5 encoding rather than Unicode.

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: Welcome to the site Hans! :) Really a good quality answer and from a new user! Hope you stick around with us!  
> **username_5**: Glad to help. I just bumped into the site this week and found it interesting — sometimes hard, though — to discuss my language with people from different cultures. Please feel free to correct my sentences as I'm less skilled in English.  

---

### Answer by username_6 on 2018-06-15. Score: 3

The top part of「姜」is「羊」, serving as a phonetic component, and the bottom part is「女」, serving as a semantic component. It was originally used as a proper noun.

This is where the clarity ends if you rely on things like popular etymology or non-up to date resources to check up similar-looking characters, which will frequently provide conflicting or obscure explanations for glyph origins (although most resources will decompose「姜」correctly).

In general, Chinese character components have changed heavily over the years, with different components sometimes merging into one form. Most references that you'll see will not give you a clear breakdown of individual characters, and the times they get an individual component「X」right do not explain other components which have merged into the same shape as「X」.

---

As others have correctly stated, 「⺷」is how we write「羊」at the top in the modern form. There is one more (actually two, but they're very similar graphical variations of each other) shape morph of「羊」to be aware of, and that is how it's written at the top-**left**:

* 「⺶」(PRC usually uses this form)
* 「⿱⿰丿X」, where X is a placeholder (Other places usually use this form)

I won't talk about characters which contain the full form of「羊」here, like「咩」or「羶」, because they're fairly obvious. Characters which *really* contain the graphical variants of「羊」described above can be split into the following:

* Characters which had a hint of the meaning *sheep*. Examples:

  + 「羔」, a lamb
  + 「義」, morality
  + 「善」, a meal (now written「膳」)
  + 「犧」, to sacrifice
  + 「羞」, (original meaning) an offering
* Characters which had a hint of the sound ancestral to **yáng**. Examples:

  + 「姜」, **jiāng**
  + 「羕」, **yàng**
  + 「恙」, **yàng**
* Characters which uses「羊」for both sound and meaning. Examples:

  + 「羌」, **qiāng**, the historical [Qiang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiang_(historical_people)) tribes which were constantly at war with the [Shang dynasty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty). These people were perceived by the Shang to wear ram horns as a sort of decorative or ritualistic headwear.
  + 「養」, **yǎng**, (original meaning) to herd sheep

There are many other characters which *don't really* contain「羊」, but was something else that eventually morphed into「」, 「⺶」, or「⿱⿰丿X」. Examples:

* 「着」, large graphical corruptions of what was originally「箸」
* 「美」, top was originally a headdress
* 「差」, top was originally「木」
* 「盖」, top was originally「去」

---

References:

* 《古文字詁林》, 1999
* 季旭昇《說文新證》, 2014


---

