Identifying Japanese Seal Script

The purpose of this publication is to provide a basic guide and reference for identifying Japanese seal script. The most effective way of identifying a seal script is by its radical, a graphical component under which the character is traditionally listed in a dictionary. The radicals used here are the Japanese version of the 214 Chinese Kangxi radicals.The first thing to do is to identify the radical under which the character is most likely to have been indexed.To begin with, this dictionary offers a RADICAL SECTION. If you think you found a match with the supposed radical for the seal character in question, then go to the page which lists the characters grouped under that radical. This dictionary contains approximately 4,000 characters. As mentioned, the purpose of this publication is to provide a basic guide and reference. It is not meant as a comprehensive seal script dictionary offering different interpretations of each seal character.