Chinese Characters

箕

PINYIN

jī

Main meanings:

① winnowing basket; dustpan.
② with strips as a winnowing basket: fingerprint.
③ people that hold winnowing baskets: wife, tax collector.
④ one of the lunar mansions, the tail of Sagittarius

HSK - no

STROKES - 14

RADICAL - 竹

Etymology:
Elements ---- basket 其 - bamboo 竹. Phonetic series - 其.

Originally writen as 其. A pictogram of a basket rose up with two hands 廾. When this pictogram was used to refer to the contents of the basket, the bamboo 竹 radical was added, as baskets were mainly made with bamboo. From basket it extended its meaning to things with the same patters, as the fingerprints, to people that carry the dustbin, as the wife, or carry away baskets of tributes, as excessive tributes, and to a constellation perhaps with a dustpan shape.

Main Words:

① winnowing basket; dustpan.

簸箕 bòji dustpan; winnowing fan; loop (of a fingerprint)
撮箕 cuōjī dustpan.

② with strips as a winnowing basket: fingerprint.

斗箕 dǒuji fingerprint.

③ people that hold winnowing baskets: wife, tax collector.

箕赋 jīfù levy excessive taxes.
箕帚 jīzhǒu dustpan and broom; wife, concubine.
箕帚妾 jīzhǒuqiè wife, concubine.

④ one of the lunar mansions.

箕宿 Jīxiù one of the traditional 28 constellations.
骑箕 qíjī pass away, die; ride the tail of Sagittarius. As in old China the people believed that after death the souls go to the tail of Saggitarius region of the sky.

Discussion and sources

Karlgren thinks it is the drawing of a basket. Most of the Chinese scholars agree with him. Some, as Gu Jianping, think it is a dustpan. I think that its role in the characters it forms part suggest it was originally a basket.

Gu Jianping (顾建平). Times Encyclopedia of Written Chinese. China Publishers. Shanghai. 2014.
Karlgren, Bernhard. Grammata Serica Recensa. The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Bulletin 29. Stockholm. 1957.

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