貝

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See also: 贝, 目, 見, 具, 頁, and 員
貝 U+8C9D, 貝
CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-8C9D
← 貜
 		CJK Unified Ideographs 貞 →
⾙ U+2F99, ⾙
KANGXI RADICAL SHELL
← ⾘
 		Kangxi Radicals ⾚ →

Translingual

Stroke order
7 strokes
Stroke order

Han character

貝 (Kangxi radical 154, 貝+0, 7 strokes, cangjie input 月山金 (BUC), four-corner 60800, composition ⿱目八)

  1. Kangxi radical #154, ⾙.

Derived characters

References

  • Kangxi Dictionary: page 1204, character 1
  • Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 36656
  • Dae Jaweon: page 1665, character 2
  • Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 6, page 3622, character 1
  • Unihan data for U+8C9D

Chinese

trad. 貝
simp. 贝

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 貝
Shang Western Zhou Warring States Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han) Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Oracle bone script Bronze inscriptions Chu slip and silk script Small seal script Transcribed ancient scripts
Characters in the same phonetic series (貝) (Zhengzhang, 2003) 
Old Chinese
貝 *paːds
狽 *paːds
鋇 *paːds
浿 *pʰaːds, *pʰreːds
垻 *praːs
敗 *praːds, *braːds
唄 *braːds

Pictogram (象形) – cowrie.

Etymology

Cowries were used as money in ancient China (shell money).

Possibly from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *bwap (“snail”); cognate with Jingpho pawp, lapawp (“snail”), Chepang बोप् (bop, “snail”) (STEDT; Starostin; Schuessler, 2007).

Alternatively, Guo (1945) proposes that it is an ancient loanword from languages of the south (which call it bia). Since the species of sea snail used as decoration and currency—Monetaria moneta (money cowry)—is not native to the eastern seashores of China, he proposes that cowries used by the ancient Chinese dynasties in Central China must have come from the southeastern shores of China and areas further south. Compare Malay bia (“cowry”), Thai เบี้ย (bîia, “cowry shell; money”), Proto-Mon-Khmer *ɓa(a)j (“bean, small weight or coin”) > Khasi sbâi (“cowry; shell; money”), Khmer ពៃ (pɨy, “obsolete small coin”) (Schuessler, 2007).

Pronunciation

Note:
  • bue3 - vernacular;
  • bui3 - literary.
Rime
Character 貝
Reading # 1/1
Initial (聲) 幫 (1)
Final (韻) 泰 (25)
Tone (調) Departing (H)
Openness (開合) Open
Division (等) I
Fanqie 愽蓋切
Baxter pajH
Reconstructions
Zhengzhang
Shangfang 		/pɑiH/
Pan
Wuyun 		/pɑiH/
Shao
Rongfen 		/pɑiH/
Edwin
Pulleyblank 		/pajH/
Li
Rong 		/pɑiH/
Wang
Li 		/pɑiH/
Bernard
Karlgren 		/pɑiH/
Expected
Mandarin
Reflex 		bèi
Expected
Cantonese
Reflex 		bui3
Baxter–Sagart system 1.1 (2014)
Character 貝
Reading # 1/1
Modern
Beijing
(Pinyin) 		bèi
Middle
Chinese 		‹ pajH ›
Old
Chinese 		/*pˁa-s/
English cowry shell

Notes for Old Chinese notations in the Baxter–Sagart system:

* Parentheses "()" indicate uncertain presence;
* Square brackets "" indicate uncertain identity, e.g. * as coda may in fact be *-t or *-p;
* Angle brackets "<>" indicate infix;
* Hyphen "-" indicates morpheme boundary;

* Period "." indicates syllable boundary.
Zhengzhang system (2003)
Character 貝
Reading # 1/1
No. 415
Phonetic
component 		貝
Rime
group 		祭
Rime
subdivision 		1
Corresponding
MC rime 		貝
Old
Chinese 		/*paːds/

Definitions

貝

  1. shellfish; cowrie
  2. † money; currency
  3. a surname
    貝聿銘／贝聿铭  ―  Bèi Yùmíng  ―  Ieoh Ming Pei (Chinese-American architect)

Compounds

References

Japanese

Kanji

貝

(grade 1 “Kyōiku” kanji)

Readings

Etymology 1

Kanji in this term
貝
かい
Grade: 1
kun’yomi
Japanese Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia ja
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
貝(かい) (kai): display of various shellfish specimens

⟨kapi1⟩ → */kapʲi/ → /kaɸi/ → /kawi/ → /kai/

From Old Japanese, from Proto-Japonic *kapi. Appears voiced in the Kojiki of 712 CE in a compound, with the phonetic man'yōgana spelling 賀比, and in the Man'yōshū, completed some time after 759 CE.

Pronunciation

Noun

貝(かい) • (kai) ←かひ (kafi)?

  1. an aquatic shellfish (generally limited to mollusks with calcareous shells such as clams or snails, and excluding crustaceans such as shrimp or crabs)
Derived terms
Derived terms

Etymology 2

Kanji in this term
貝
ばい
Grade: 1
kan’yōon
Alternative spellings
蛽
海蠃 (rare)
海螄 (rare)
Japanese Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia ja
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
バイ (bai): Babylonia japonica or Japanese ivory shell for sale at a fishmarket in Japan.

Probably ultimately from Middle Chinese 貝 (MC pajH). Compare modern Min Nan pronunciation buê6, Cantonese bui3, Mandarin bèi.

First attested in 1284.

Pronunciation

Noun

貝(ばい) or 貝(バイ) • (bai) ←ばい (bai)?

  1. Babylonia japonica (Japanese babylon or Japanese ivory shell)
Usage notes
  • As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana, especially in biological contexts (where katakana is customary).

References

  1. ^ Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典（新装版） [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN
  2. ^ Frellesvig, Bjarke, Stephen Wright Horn, et al. (eds.) (2023) “Old Japanese kapi”, in Oxford-NINJAL Corpus of Old Japanese‎
  3. ^
    c. 759, Man’yōshū, book 15, poem 3709:
    , text here
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 (in Japanese), Third edition, Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
  5. ^ NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: NHK Publishing, →ISBN
  6. ^ Kindaichi, Kyōsuke et al., editors (1974), 新明解国語辞典 (in Japanese), Second edition, Tōkyō: Sanseidō
  7. ^ “貝・蛽・海蠃”, in 日本国語大辞典 (Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, “Nihon Kokugo Daijiten”)‎ (in Japanese), concise edition, Tōkyō: Shogakukan, 2000

Korean

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Middle Korean readings, if any”)

Pronunciation

Hanja

Korean Wikisource has texts containing the hanja:

Wikisource

貝 (eumhun 조개 패 (jogae pae))

  1. Hanja form? of 패 (“clam, shellfish”).

Vietnamese

Han character

貝: Hán Nôm readings: bối, buổi, bói, búi, với, mấy, mới, vuối, thói

  1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
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