0046 何 vs 向

何

The character above means ‘what, which’ and also ‘why’ in Chinese. It’s pronounced KA, nani, nan, izure, or dore in Japanese, hé in Chinese. I had trouble looking it up and realized I’d confused it with Kanji-of-the-day 0029 向 (the text of which is pasted in below for reference). I thought maybe they were just typographical variants of one another, but, no, they are totally separate.

The left-hand element (almost-but-not-quite-connected to the hook on the right) is the vertically compressed form of ‘man’ 人. The man has a scythe or hoe (the right-hand element) over his shoulder. How that signifies ‘what, which, etc.,’ no one tells us. Maybe he’s heading out to harvest knowledge from the fields of wisdom (which might be the small square in the middle), asking, ‘What? Which? Why?’ with each swing of his scythe.

__________________________

(reprint for comparison) Kanji-of-the-day 0029 向

向

This character means ‘face toward, turn toward,’ (mukau/muku), and ‘opposite side,’ (mukō) in Japanese. It’s xiáng in Chinese, meaning ‘toward, direction, trend.’ Some of the ancient versions were pretty close

,

but others were much more intricate

.

The idea is that the square or circle represents a small round ventilation window in the northern wall under the roof. Did people want to face that window? Not clear.

外向

means ‘extroverted, outgoing,’ which is clear from the combination of characters meaning ‘outside’ and ‘face toward.’