seal script that looks like cat kanji

[asakiyume]

Wakanomori is providing me with all kinds of interesting items these days. For today, have some cat kanji. It looks made up, doesn't it? But it's a bone fide form of seal script--that is, stylized kanji used for signature seals.　The source is 篆楷字典 (Tenkai Jiten), a dictionary of seal script (tensho) and kaisho, a very clear, blocky style used in inscriptions.

Comments

[larryhammer]

:-)

[asakiyume]

Meow!

[amaebi]

How funny!

[asakiyume]

I thought it was someone's whimsy, but it's a for-real style!

[osprey_archer]

Oh! So there are for something like signet rings? So someone's super-important signet could be one of those cats with two arms that look like an anime cat that's waving its arms to get the magical girl heroine's attention?

[asakiyume]

Yeah, in Japan, everyone has personal stamps that you use for signing certain official things. They look like this:



Confusingly, not all of those are in seal script, but they *can* use seal script. Here's some non-cat-looking seal script:



Can you see how it's more curvy-looking than typical kanji? That's the stylization of seal script.

[osprey_archer]

Wait, people still use these? I thought it was historical, like signet rings. WHY IS JAPAN SO COOL?

[asakiyume]

Yeah they do! Little Springtime has one (but the ninja girl doesn't--foreigners aren't expected to have one).

The entire Japanese polity smiles modestly and says, no, no, it's nothing really :-)

[sovay]

seal script that looks like cat kanji

It does! That's wonderful.

[asakiyume]

I thought you'd like it! Maybe you can pass it along to Yoon Ha Lee; for some reason I had the idea he might like it too.

[pameladean]

How delightful!

P.

[asakiyume]

It made me smile!

[boxofdelights]

Bottom row, sixth from the right HAS to mean "ninja warrior cat". HAS TO.

[asakiyume]

Absolutely. And the fifth row down seems to be the row for Cats Who Are Exercising.

[ivy]

This is fantastic! Thanks for sharing. Second row from the bottom, three in from the left is clearly a cat in a sleeping bag.

[asakiyume]

D'awww! Or, alternatively, a cat waiting to receive a belly rub (after which it will bite your hand to let you know it's had enough)

[umadoshi]

That is delightful. *^^*

[asakiyume]

:D Glad you like it--I think so too~

[light_of_summer]

This is very cool! It reminds me a bit of the "Dancing Men" from one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, only with cats. Do you happen to know the significance of any of the non-cat characters in the table? I notice that a lot of them look like duplicates, and am curious to know if they're definitions, or meta-data, or what.

[asakiyume]

Those characters say what the character above is a seal script form of. So for instance, you'll see a lot of 貝 (pronounced "kai"), which means shell. Any of the seal script characters above can represent that character--so you have quite a lot to pick from.