Can anyone read this Chinese (?) symbol?

[motorollin]

This symbol is from the dog tag of a Prisoner of War in Changi prison during World War 2. On the opposite side is the arabic number "954". We are interested in what the symbol might mean.

If anyone can read it, please let me know :-)

[bloodline]

motorollin wrote:
This symbol is from the dog tag of a Prisoner of War in Changi prison during World War 2. On the opposite side is the arabic number "954". We are interested in what the symbol might mean.

If anyone can read it, please let me know :-)

You know... I really should, but I think I'm dating the only Chinese person in the whole world who can't read Chinese 

[jmbattle]

This character looks very similar to the character for 'English':



The above is actually from a Japanese kanji website, however the Chinese character is exactly the same.

However, you will note that there is an additional stroke below the first three strokes at the top, while the lowest two strokes are written slightly differently.

I have attempted to 'draw' the character using HanziDict, however did not have any success, I'm afraid.  The stroke order is very important in Chinese/Japanese character writing, yet after trying all possible combinations, the applet was unable to recognise it.

Good luck with your search!

Cheers,
James
x

[adz]

@moto

What makes you think it's Chinese? Can you give any more details on the history of the dog tag? The number may represent a prisoner number while the symbol might represent a type of prisoner? Anyway, the more info the better :-)

[motorollin]

@James
Thanks for looking in to this for me! :-) It does look quite similar, and it would make sense for the prisoners' nationality or native language to be easily identifiable.

Thanks again :pint:

[motorollin]

@adz
It was a Chinese prison, though it was IIRC commandeered by the Japanese. I don't really know anything about Chinese or Japanese orthography, but having looked at some symbols from both it just looked more similar to the Chinese system to my untrained eye. The Japanese symbols seemed to be less geometric than the Chinese, with more curved lines. But then, if I understand correctly there are several forms of orthography in both Chinese and Japanese depending on the region/dialect, which probably confuses things further.

As for the symbol representing the number, I'm not sure. I did wonder about this, and looked in to both the Chinese and Japanese numerical systems. They both seem to construct larger numbers by combining multiple symbols, rather than having the whole number collapsed in to one symbol. (Similar, I suppose, to arabic numerals).

The dog tag belonged to my other half's step dad's father. All we know is that he was held in Changi by the Japanese for three years during WW2. Unfortunately, we don't have any more information.

Apologies for my ignorance, and for any glaring errors or assumptions in my interpretation of Chinese and Japanese language ;-)

[jmbattle]

motorollin,

Actually, the Japanese 'kanji' character set is based on Chinese.  However in addition to these characters, there are also Hiragana and Katakana symbols that are not used in Chinese.

Hiragana and Katakana characters are typically less complicated than most Kanji due to the reduced number of strokes.

Good luck with the rest of your search!

Cheers,
James
x

[adz]

@moto

A little history of Changi Prision

My great uncle spent time there during WWII as a POW, not sure of the exact details myself, all I know is that he's no longer with us, died of a heart attack in the late 50's. If your other half's step dads father spent time there during WWII, then it would have been under Japanese occupation. That's what makes me think that it's a Japanese character instead of a Chinese character.

A potentially useful link

Specifically because of this image:



Issued to Mrs A M Cuthbe, who was a British civilian internee of the Japanese in Changi Prison, and later at Syme Road, Singapore. Her husband, Mr Kenneth V Cuthbe, an engineer with the British colonial service in Malaya, was interned in the men's section of the prison. Both survived the war and later settled in Australia.

[bloodline]

I think jmbattle and ADZ have it cracked! It seems to be Nationality and a number.

Good detective work guys!

[Methuselas]

I'm probably late, Moto, but that's the character "mei", which is "beautiful". Judging from your statement about the number, I'm assuming it's something to do with nationality. "Meiguoren" literally translates to "Person of the Beautiful Country" (mei = beautiful quo = country ren = person). Now, the thing is Meiguo is the Mandarin word for "England" or "Britian" (there's a separate word for Ireland and Scotland, though typically, Meiguo is used for reference to the United Kingdom *AND* the U.S.) There is, however, another term for Americans, I just can't remember it off the top of my head and quite frankly, most mainland Chinese consider Americans and Britons to be one and the same. :lol: Pou gai comes to mind, though...... (Note to Matt, don't say that to your significant other. I'm not responsible for what they do to you, should they think you're calling them that.... :roflmao:)


And if anyone wants to know, Zhongguoren is "Person of the Middle Country" or, for lack of better term, "Chinaman" .


That ends our lesson today in Mandarin 101.


Nevermind.....


On a side note, double repetition of the same character, typically means of a "small variety" or "little". Mei Mei, translates to "little beautiful", but is the word for "little sister".