I am working on this Kanji dictionary program that helps sort out similar-looking (but different-meaning) words. I found an open source dictionary (kradfile) and was doing some analysis on it when I came across a total of 252 radicals (shown below). However, a popular online list has 214 radicals. What’s up?

[0] => 匕 [1] => ノ [2] => 勹 [3] => ヨ [4] => 亠 [5] => 厶 [6] => 川 [7] => 一 [8] => ｜ [9] => 二 [10] => ハ [11] => 衣 [12] => ⺅ [13] => 口 [14] => 大 [15] => 矢 [16] => 廾 [17] => 文 [18] => 斉 [19] => 并 [20] => 木 [21] => 王 [22] => 羊 [23] => 耒 [24] => 日 [25] => 白 [26] => 入 [27] => 冂 [28] => 凵 [29] => 儿 [30] => 冖 [31] => 冫 [32] => 刀 [33] => 工 [34] => 丶 [35] => 力 [36] => 九 [37] => 生 [38] => 十 [39] => 又 [40] => 尸 [41] => 巾 [42] => 父 [43] => 田 [44] => 彑 [45] => 水 [46] => 月 [47] => 西 [48] => 門 [49] => 亅 [50] => 彳 [51] => 金 [52] => 土 [53] => 長 [54] => 女 [55] => 宀 [56] => 耳 [57] => 禸 [58] => 虫 [59] => 夂 [60] => ⻖ [61] => 人 [62] => 寸 [63] => 厂 [64] => 山 [65] => 干 [66] => 而 [67] => 鬼 [68] => 小 [69] => 示 [70] => 灬 [71] => 鳥 [72] => 几 [73] => 夕 [74] => 豆 [75] => 心 [76] => 忄 [77] => 爪 [78] => 扌 [79] => 手 [80] => 臼 [81] => 隹 [82] => 卜 [83] => 子 [84] => 幺 [85] => 攵 [86] => 至 [87] => 戈 [88] => 刂 [89] => 𠆢 [90] => 穴 [91] => 谷 [92] => 屮 [93] => 爿 [94] => 目 [95] => 罒 [96] => 自 [97] => 竹 [98] => 高 [99] => 欠 [100] => 氵 [101] => 广 [102] => 羽 [103] => 革 [104] => 火 [105] => 卩 [106] => 士 [107] => 牛 [108] => 乙 [109] => 犭 [110] => 屯 [111] => ⺾ [112] => 疒 [113] => 貝 [114] => 禾 [115] => 頁 [116] => 缶 [117] => 見 [118] => 毛 [119] => 亀 [120] => 世 [121] => 米 [122] => 戸 [123] => 糸 [124] => 聿 [125] => ⺌ [126] => 匚 [127] => 臣 [128] => ⺹ [129] => 氏 [130] => 舌 [131] => 舟 [132] => 青 [133] => 風 [134] => 乃 [135] => 馬 [136] => 隶 [137] => 止 [138] => ⻏ [139] => 皿 [140] => 血 [141] => 衤 [142] => 雨 [143] => 角 [144] => 言 [145] => 豸 [146] => 足 [147] => 車 [148] => 酉 [149] => 食 [150] => 骨 [151] => 比 [152] => 黽 [153] => 弓 [154] => 疋 [155] => 斤 [156] => 彡 [157] => 井 [158] => 久 [159] => 廴 [160] => 也 [161] => 立 [162] => 辛 [163] => マ [164] => 五 [165] => 亡 [166] => 曰 [167] => 囗 [168] => 弋 [169] => 方 [170] => 及 [171] => 支 [172] => 犬 [173] => 用 [174] => 艮 [175] => 玄 [176] => 歹 [177] => ユ [178] => 冊 [179] => 母 [180] => 毋 [181] => 辰 [182] => 已 [183] => 巴 [184] => 里 [185] => 免 [186] => 非 [187] => 奄 [188] => 虍 [189] => 甘 [190] => 走 [191] => 韋 [192] => 勿 [193] => 音 [194] => 面 [195] => 舛 [196] => 豕 [197] => 品 [198] => 黄 [199] => 癶 [200] => 尢 [201] => 尤 [202] => 无 [203] => 齊 [204] => 辶 [205] => 無 [206] => 黒 [207] => 鹿 [208] => 元 [209] => 牙 [210] => 巛 [211] => 岡 [212] => 矛 [213] => 鼻 [214] => 石 [215] => 身 [216] => 殳 [217] => 瓜 [218] => 肉 [219] => 行 [220] => 鬲 [221] => 麻 [222] => 歯 [223] => 首 [224] => 赤 [225] => 魚 [226] => 竜 [227] => 爻 [228] => 斗 [229] => 皮 [230] => 片 [231] => 滴 [232] => 韭 [233] => 釆 [234] => 巨 [235] => 邑 [236] => 气 [237] => 鼠 [238] => 礻 [239] => 色 [240] => 香 [241] => 鹵 [242] => 龠 [243] => 瓦 [244] => 鼓 [245] => 黍 [246] => 飛 [247] => 髟 [248] => 鬥 [249] => 鬯 [250] => 麦 [251] => 黹 [252] => 鼎

If you want to duplicate the result yourself, here is the PHP code to use.


$krad_input = file_get_contents(dirname(__FILE__) . "/krad.txt");
$krad_array = explode("\n", $krad_input);
unset($krad_input);
$total = count($krad_array);
$i = 0;
$radicalarray = array();
$stored = array();
while ($i < $total){
$string = $krad_array[$i];
if (substr($string, 0, 1) != "#"){
$kanji_and_radicals = extract_kanji_and_radicals($string);
//print_r($kanji_and_radicals);
foreach($kanji_and_radicals['radicals'] as $radical){
if (!isset($stored[$radical])){
$stored[$radical] = 1;
$radicalarray[] = $radical;
}
}
// We know the Kanji. We know its radicals. We can insert it into the database.
}
$i++;
}
print_r($radicalarray);
\n
function extract_kanji_and_radicals($string){
$regex = "`(\s:\s|\s+)`imus";
$matches = preg_split($regex, $string);
$return['kanji'] = $matches[0];
array_shift($matches);
$return['radicals'] = $matches;
return $return;
}


You can get the dictionary file from Kanjicafe.com.

-edit-
Curiouser and curiouser, it seems that the classic number is 212. There are a bunch of radicals in there that simply do not exist classically; perhaps they are an amalgamation of the radicals available in all the various Japanese-English dictionaries? (In some cases the radicals were altered to more closely suit the kanji itself)