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I'm a East Asian preparing to celebrate the Lunar New Year and have found this piece of decoration. The Chinese character on it is, I'm pretty sure, a Traditional one, literally full of strokes and pretty calligraphic. I've tried looking up this character in our most reliable Han dictionary (from Traditional Chinese characters to our language), but failed (partly because it's a Han dictionary). Particularly, I've researched (groups of) radicals of 辵 (辶) and 宀 in the dictionary (and failed, as mentioned).

Now I'm here to seek help. What is this character?

Photo of character

Becky 李蓓
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Vincent J. Ruan
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1 Answers1

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It's not likely you'll find this in any dictionary because it's a conglomeration of four characters: 招財進寶 "attracting money and treasure". See if you can find them. Hint: there is one part that is shared by two of the characters.

monalisa
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    http://blogs.adobe.com/CCJKType/2009/01/diy.html is a fun instruction for how to DIY. Is it purely graphic or does it have some pronunciation? – Master Sparkles Feb 14 '15 at 16:20
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    Thank you, monalisa (I can't vote-up for now but I accepted). However, there are actually two parts, each of which is shared by two characters. – Vincent J. Ruan Feb 14 '15 at 16:52
  • To VincentJ.Ruan: Yes, you're right. I stand corrected. There are two shared parts.

    @MasterSparkles Interesting question. It has never occurred to me that there could be some pronunciation associated with this. I always pronounce it the same way I pronounce the four component characters /zhao1 cai2 jin4 bao3/ in Mandarin or /jiu1 choi4 jeun3 bou2/ in Cantonese. I am not aware of any other pronunciation. Maybe somebody else can help.

     – monalisa Feb 14 '15 at 17:03
  • @monalisa I kind of wonder why such things aren't considered characters since for all intents and purposes they're formed according to the same logic... I guess it just comes down to the same old boring answer: convention. Really interesting stuff in any case. – Master Sparkles Feb 15 '15 at 04:14
  • @MasterSparkles I suppose for something to be considered a character, it has to acquire some kind of pronunciation (and the Chinese norm is one syllable per character), meaning and usage. For now this has none of the above, at least none beyond the sum of its components. This "compound character" has been around for years now, and it has not gone beyond a purely decorative, and somewhat clever way to write the phrase 招財進寶. I just don't see it making any progress toward "character-status" any time soon. – monalisa Feb 15 '15 at 23:22
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    Haha I know. I'm just interested in the idea that a glyph (?) has to have a pronunciation in order to be considered character, and this is as good an excuse as any to ponder the matter. Thanks for the additional insights. – Master Sparkles Feb 15 '15 at 23:41
  • Interesting philosophical conundrum: Is ﷺ one character? – TRiG Nov 01 '19 at 16:42