What does 亅 mean?

Question

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BA%85

doesn't say anything. It's just a vertical hook. I see it in words like

小

Xiǎo

However, the wiktionary entry doesn't tell any meaning. Does all radical have meaning? Or are some just lines?

For example, wiktionary entry for https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E2%BA%88 dao or knife also don't show meaning. However, it actually means knife.

So I wonder why many entries in wiktionary don't tell us the meaning of a radical?

Do some radicals have no meaning?

Answer 1

Many radical have meaning, but not all.

亅 is both a radical and a stroke. In Chinese, like English, all strokes are meaningless. You cannot say strokes c and | in the English letter d have a specific meaning.

Radical is called “indexing component” (部首) in China’s national standard GF 0011-2009. In this standard, there are 201 indexing components in Simplified Chinese. In pp. 3-5 of GF 0011-2009, we can see Indexing Component No 2 is 丨 (alternative form 亅) which is a single stroke and does not have any meaning. However Indexing Component No 22 刀 is a complete character means knife, as it mentioned, ⺈ and 刂 are 刀’s alternative form.

Therefore, we know that indexing component could be a complete character or some stroke(s), including alternative forms such as 亅 and ⺈. But why we need to recognise indexing components? Let us talk about China’s dictionaries (Chinese-Chinese) and Chinese learner's dictionaries (Chinese-English / Chinese-French / Chinese-Arabic…) in paper form. These dictionaries usually arrange their pages by Pinyin A-Z. So if you know Pinyin pronunciation, you can easily locate the pages by ABCD … XYZ Latin alphabet, just like what you do in English or French dictionaries. However, what if you do not know the pronunciation of a character? You can use indexing components to look up a character.

Let's say you do not know how to pronounce 分, and you want to look it up in a dictionary. I have a dictionary for native speakers called Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (《现代汉语词典》) 7th edition. I will use it as an example.

1. Turn to indexing component directory (部首目录) page of the dictionary.
2. Guess the indexing component maybe No 11 八. It says it is on directory page 17 (page number of preface, not main entries).
3. Turn to directory page 17. It shows all characters containing indexing component of 八. 380 386
4. Count the stroke number of the rest part of the character (indexing component excluded), i.e. rest part of 分 is the part which does not contain 八, that is 刀. Therefore, the stroke number of 刀 is 2.
5. Locate the title “2 strokes (left)” under the indexing component, then it says 分 is on pp. 380 and 386.
6. Turn to main entries:
   • p. 380 分 (fēn) <1> v. sperate 分离 <2> v.distribute 分配 … <8> measure word. unit in currency and time etc …
   • p. 386 分 (fèn) <1> n. ingredient 成分 …

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Note:

1. Most indexing component has a name, appendix of Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (7th ed) shows these names. ⺈ is called 斜刀头 (xiédāotóu). If you learn Chinese calligraphy, you will know that the stoke 丨 is called 竖 (shù) and 亅 is called 竖钩 (shùgōu).
2. The indexing component of 分 should be 八. However, to reduce learners’ workload, if learners look up indexing component 刀, they can also see 分 present (with a ° mark denotes 刀 is not recommended for 分).
3. Traditional Chinese uses Kangxi Radicals (total 214 radicals), which is the origin of GF 0011-2009. Traditional Chinese dictionaries in Taiwan usually order the characters by Bopomofo (注音|zhùyīn) such as ㄅ (b in Pinyin), ㄆ (p in Pinyin), ㄇ (m in Pinyin), ㄈ (f in Pinyin). Cantonese dictionaries usually order the characters by Jyutping (粵拼|yuèpīn), which is a phonetic alphabet in Latin script (A-Z) designed for Cantonese.