RADKFILE/KRADFILE

Introduction

This project provides a decomposition of kanji into a number of visual elements or radicals to support software which provides a lookup service using kanji components.

The initial files were based on work done in 1994/1995 by Michael Raine in which he analyzed all the JIS208 kanji and identified the constituent radicals and other common elements, with the intention of facilitating the selection of kanji within a dictionary program (JWP) by identifying multiple elements. The file was coverted into a pair of text files and revised by Jim Breen in September 1995. Many further revisions have been made over the years.

The KRADFILE file

This is the basic file of data. The file consists of 6,355 lines of text; one for each of the JIS X 0208-1997 kanji. Each line is a follows:

• the kanji itself,
• a space followed by a colon (:) followed by a space,
• one or more radicals/elements which can be seen in the kanji. These are drawn from JIS X 0208-1997. Where the element alone is not in JIS X 0208, a kanji which contains the element is used instead.

The following table (from the WWWJDIC server) shows the radicals/elements used in the decomposition. Note that they are NOT the same as the classical 214 radicals, although there is considerable overlap.

The decomposition is based on what can be seen in typical kanji glyphs. Elements themselves can be further subdivided. For example, 舌 is an element and so is 口, so the elements in 話 are <口 舌 言>.

Here is a short sample of the file:

哀 : 衣 口 亠
愛 : 心 爪 冖 夂

The RADKFILE file

The RADKFILE file is an inversion of the KRADFILE file, and is the file used by kanji lookup software. The format is as follows:

• all lines starting with a identify a kanji element, followed by its stroke-count and optionally either the JIS X 0212 code of the kanji whose glyph better depicts the element in question or the name of an image file (used by the WWWJDIC server).
• all other lines with kanji in them are associated with the previously identified element.

For example, the following lines identify the kanji containg the 子 component:

子 3
廓郭学季享教孤菰厚好孔孝酵仔子孜字塾熟淳醇序存孫遜惇敦乳浮勃孟猛遊李俘吼
哮孑孕孚孛孥孩孰孳孵學斈孺孱悖悸拵暾栫桴椁槨殍渤游潺燉艀荐蜉蝣諄郛鐓鶉

RADKFILE2/KRADFILE2

This pair of files cover the additional 5,801 kanji in the JIS X 0212 set. They were prepared by Jim Rose in 2007. They are in the same format as RADKFILE/KRADFILE.

Software

Some of the software that uses the files are:

• the JWP and JWPce WP/dictionary programs (Windows)
• my xjdic Unix/Linux/X11 dictionary program
• Botond Botyanszki's GJITEN Unix/Linux dictionary program
• the WWWJDIC server. WWWJDIC uses a combination of the two files, enabling the technique to be used for the 12,156 kanji in JIS X 0208 and 0212.
• Jim Rose's Ice Mocha page
• the Jisho.org server (*)
• Ben Bullock's multi-radical server (*)
• the Tangorin server. (*)
• the Jlex server (*)

Download

The files can be downloaded from the Monash ftp archive:

• radkfile.gz
• kradfile.gz
• kradzip.zip (This .zip file also contains the RADKFILE2/KRADFILE2 files.)

Copyright

The RADKFILE and KRADFILE files are copright and available under the EDRDG Licence. The copyright of the RADKFILE2 and KRADFILE2 files is held by Jim Rose.

Jim Breen
February 2008
July 2017