Radical 194

Radical 194 or radical ghost (鬼部) meaning "ghost" or "demon" is one of the 8 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 10 strokes.

鬼 (9 strokes in Simplified Chinese) is also the 184th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China.

Evolution
The character is historically composed of "legs",  representing a large demon's head and a curl looking similar to  taken to represent a swirl of vapour, or a demon's tail.

The character can be traced to the oracle bone script, where it depicts a man kneeling on a monster head.

Derived characters
Most of the characters derived from the radical have meanings related to ghosts or souls, including  "devil, demon",  "black magic",  "nightmare",  "soul". In some signs, however, the radical is present purely as a phonetic marker, for example in, the State of Wei during the Spring and Autumn period.

Literature

 * Li, Leyi: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, ISBN 978-7-5619-0204-2
 * Harbaugh, Rick, Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary, Yale University Press (1998), ISBN 978-0-9660750-0-7.
 * Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth (江伊莉), 甲骨文的“鬼”与假面具 (The Gui-Spirit in Oracle Bone Inscriptions), International Conference Celebrating the 95th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions", Anyang, China, 1994.
 * Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth (江伊莉), 甲骨文的“鬼”与假面具 (The Gui-Spirit in Oracle Bone Inscriptions), International Conference Celebrating the 95th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions", Anyang, China, 1994.