Wednesday, November 8, 2017

且 and friends: story of a cairn

Kanji related to 且.  Since many can be pronounced ソ in on-reading, I'll mark the ones that can.  The story to link them:  The community builds a cairn, up past the hills, to reverence our ancestors.  Eventually we build it a roof 宜.

且 (ソ).  Moreover:  3 rocks stacked in a cairn, ソ put more over the ones already there.
租 (ソ).  Tax:  Moreover, there's a tax on the rice harvest to pay for the cairn.
粗 (ソ).  Coarse:  Moreover, the rice grains ground on the cairn (yuck) are coarse.
阻 (ソ).  Hinder:  Moreover, the hill is a hindrance to getting to that cairn.
祖 (ソ).  Ancestors:  ソ we built an altar at the cairn to reverence our ancestors.
狙 (ソ).  Aim:  Moreover, we aim the animal at the cairn as part of our sacrifice/celebration.
査 (サ).  Investigate:  Moreover, we investigated putting a wood covering on the cairn, but...
組 (ソ).  Assemble/group:  Moreover, we assemble threads in a group at the cairn instead
宜.  Kun includes よろ as in 宜しく(よろしく), best regards).  Best regards:  We honor the cairn with a ceremonial roof.  (Of threads thus assembled 組).

畳 tatami has the same root, but I can't fit it into my story.  So I'll say the square mat 田 fits as a covering (horizontal line in middle), more over the floor than was there before.

且租粗阻祖狙査組宜畳


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