[panabee]

Thanks for sharing this contrarian perspective that most Chinese characters lack a genuine semantic component.

I don't know if the data supports this or not, but it's an interesting thought.

Regarding the example of 正, Wikipedia suggests the foot radical is actually 足/⻊(radical 157) [0].

It suggests 正 is not a radical but rather derives from radical 77, "stop (止)."

When you add the top line to form 正, the image meaning becomes "stop in the middle," which seems reasonably aligned with the meaning of "right/justice/normal."

Not sure who's right: Wikipedia or you, so please clarify if Wikipedia is wrong. Thanks!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_radical

[dnautics]

it's hard to quantify as most? (i don't even know maybe 1000 or so characters) but a lot of them do have semantic component. Sometimes it's a bit obfuscated because simplification (either the pinyin instituted by the PRC or other simplifications, like jyoyo instituted by the japanese in the 19th? century) destroyed semantic meaning by fusing roots, or totally deprecating characters and replacing with unrelated characters that sound the same.

[panabee]

exactly, so not sure whether the original assertion (i.e., most characters lack semantic meaning) is correct, but it's an interesting thought to consider.

someone could prove/disprove this by analyzing the 3000 most common chars and indicating what percentage contain a semantic component (even if obfuscated).

do you know if wikipedia or the parent is correct about 正 as the radical for foot?

[nonabelion]

Wikipedia is correct. Radicals do carry a lot of semantic meanings. I think the most apparent examples are the names for chemical elements. For example, the radical 气 means gas. Hellium in Chinese is 氦，hydrogen is 氢. So look at the character you immediately know the natural state of the element. Moreover, even if you don't know a character, if you see it has the radical, you can guess what that is related.