What is this Kanji?

WHEATTHlNS

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Thanks in advance. . .of course if it ISN'T a kanji I'd like to know that too. . .
 
Konnichiwa WHEATTHlNS-san!

Is it a 「屯」? If it is a 「屯」, it is 「トン(Ton) : たむろする(Tamurosuru)」 and means "gather" or "crowd".

NANGI
 
Yea NANGI - that does look like it, but on online-dictionary.biz, Im not seeing that definition. . .

But in Chinese its Chaos and Japanese its Gather
 
jeisan said:
in chinese it means chaos, i dunno about japanese.

You may have mistaken.

The chinese character or kanji for chaos is 沌。

In chinese it is pronounced as dun4 (dùn)。

In japanese it is pronounced as ton (とん)。

In korean it is pronounced as ton (돈).

In all three languages, this character has the same meaning, it means chaos.

Example:
Chinese:
混沌 【hùn dùn】 (n) confusion; chaos
渾沌 【hún dùn】 (n) chaos; confusion

Japanese:
混沌 【こんとん】 (n) confusion; chaos
渾沌 【こんとん】 (n) confusion; chaos

Korean:
混沌 【혼돈】【huen ton】(n) confusion; chaos
渾沌 【혼돈】【huen ton】(n) confusion; chaos
 
WHEATTHlNS said:
Yea NANGI - that does look like it, but on online-dictionary.biz, Im not seeing that definition. . .

But in Chinese its Chaos and Japanese its Gather

Nangi is right, the japanese meaning for this character is gather, but it can also means ton, it can also means barrack. Depends on what on how you want to look at this word, it has the same meaning in all three languages, chinese, japanese and korean, just that their pronounciation is slightly different.

In Chinese:
屯 pronounced as tún or zhūn.

In Japanese:
屯 can be pronounced as ton (とん)or tamuro(たむろ).

In Korean:
屯 can be pronounced as tun (둔).

In all three languages, the general meanings are:
1. gather
2. military barrack
3. difficulty

The 3rd meaning "difficulty" is most widely found in <易經>, from the phase "水雷屯".
 
jeisan said:
i should clarify where i got that meaning.

its from the I-Ching, hexagram #3, chun "屯" difficulty at the beginning. which can, apparently, loosely at least, translate to chaos in english. also if you notice "屯" is part of the compound "沌" and id say the major component...

There is still a different. Chinese, Japanese and Korean dictionaries have never defined it as chaos, because 屯 doesn't have the meaning of chaos. I am sorry to say that, but that is a fact. Although 屯 is part of 沌, but it is totally two different characters, kanji or chinese character don't work the way you mentioned. In fact it works the opposite you mentioned, look at 沌, there is an additional three stroke to the left, that three stroke means water, so 沌 was modified from the meaning of 屯, which means difficulty, rather than the opposite way.

Difficulty in the water, the water must be chaotic, that is why there is difficulty, hence the meaning is extended to mean chaotic by adding the water component, hence that whole character will mean chaotic.

Lastly, the character 沌 has never appeared in the explanation of the 3 hexagram 屯卦。Thus, I think it is not a good idea to link it with I-Ching.

By the way, I can't agree with you that it "can loosely at least, translate to chaos in english", it is totally unacceptable, the meaning of chaos and difficulty is totally different. In my opinion, to understand something, we must understand the precise meaning of the word or character, not the loosely definition. Understanding it in such a manner will only lead you to more misunderstanding and yield no fruits.
 
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what you say is true and while 窶愿 never wasnt in the chinese version, 'chaos' and 'chaotic' were in the english translation i linked to. i cant read chinese and the number of kanji i know can be counted on my fingers so i've actually only seen 窶愿 used in connection with the i-ching and english translations which say 'choas' so thats what i took it to mean. i figured if someone was gonna translate a book they'd do it right...

im not arguing with you about the meaning, just explaining why i thought it meant chaos instead of difficulty
 
WHEATTHlNS said:
Thanks in advance. . .of course if it ISNT a kanji id like to know that too. . .
Konnichiwa, mina-san! I'm new to this thread. Very interesting discussion going on on one kanji, so I hope I can join you?

The character link looks like an upload by you; the character strokes are not the common print style, but the looks of it seems to be either historical, or maybe an art piece, or even kitsch kanji? Could you tell us a little about where you found this particular image? The original context may help figure out what the person wanted to convey.

Or if it is you who wants to originate a message, what do you intend to convey?
 
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seasurfer said:
In all three languages, the general meanings are:
1. gather
2. military barrack
3. difficulty

The 3rd meaning "difficulty" is most widely found in <易經>, from the phase "水雷屯".
In Chinese, the word 屯 usually pronounced as "tun2", most people didn't know its second pronunciation "zhūn", I guess, it's seldom used nowadays. When the word 屯means "difficulty",it should be pronounced as "zhūn". "tun2"'s another common meaning is "village", usually used in place names, such as "皇姑屯".(GB2312)
 
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