# 宝

| 宝 | U+5B9D, &#23453; CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-5B9D |
| ← 宜 [U+5B9C] | CJK Unified Ideographs | 实 → [U+5B9E] |

## Translingual

| Japanese | 宝 |
| Simplified | 宝 |
| Traditional | 寶 |

### Han character

宝 (Kangxi radical 40, 宀+5, 8 strokes, cangjie input 十一土戈 (JMGI), four-corner 3010$_3$, composition ⿱宀玉)

#### Derived characters

* 𡝬, 𣷂, 𬃏, 𮎓, 𨉗, 𫒭, 𬝄, 𮦚, 𡬏

#### Related characters

* 寶 (Traditional form of 宝)

#### References

* Kangxi Dictionary: not present, would follow page 284, character 8
* Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 7122
* Dae Jaweon: page 561, character 8
* Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 2, page 917, character 10
* Unihan data for U+5B9D

## Chinese
### Glyph origin

Simplified from 寶 (⿱珤貝 → 玉). Officially adopted as the simplified form of 寶 in the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (《漢字簡化方案》) in 1956.

### Definitions

* For pronunciation and definitions of 宝 – see 寶 (“treasure; riches; valuables; precious thing; to treasure; to cherish; etc.”). (This character is the simplified and variant form of 寶).
* Notes:Simplified Chinese is mainly used in Mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore.Traditional Chinese is mainly used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

## Japanese

| Shinjitai | 宝 |
| Kyūjitai | 寶 |

### Kanji

(Sixth grade kyōiku kanji, shinjitai kanji, kyūjitai form 寶)
* precious objects
* worldly goods
* valuable possessions

#### Readings

* Go-on: ほう (hō, Jōyō)
* Kan-on: ほう (hō, Jōyō)
* Kan’yō-on: ほ (ho)
* Kun: たから (takara, 宝, Jōyō)

### Etymology

* Kanji in this term
* 宝
* たから Grade: 6
* kun'yomi
* Alternative spellings
* 寶 (kyūjitai) 財 貨 幣
From Old Japanese. First cited to the Man'yōshū of 759 CE. From Proto-Japonic *takara.
Samuel Martin analyzes this as a compound of 高 (taka-, “high”) + 等 (-ra, pluralizing suffix). However, this is semantically problematic, as such a compound would ordinarily refer to "the heights" as a location, and there is no clear means of deriving the sense of "treasure" from the proposed component parts.
Some sources derive this as a compound of 田 (ta, “paddy field”) +‎ から (kara, “from”), literally “from the paddy fields”, from the way people value thriving paddy fields as a unique kind of treasure. However, the sense of "from" for から (kara) does not appear until roughly the Heian period, more recent than the first appearance of takara, making this a folk etymology.

### Pronunciation

* (Tokyo) たから [tàkáráꜜ] (Odaka – [3])
* IPA: [ta̠ka̠ɾa̠]

### Noun

宝(たから) • (takara)
* [from 759] treasure

### References

* ↑ “宝・財・貨”, in 日本国語大辞典 [Nihon Kokugo Daijiten]‎ (in Japanese), concise edition, Tokyo: Shogakukan, 2006
* ↑ Samuel E. Martin (1987) The Japanese Language Through Time, New Haven, London: Yale University Press, →ISBN
* ↑ 宝は田から～私たちの原点～ | 宝酒造株式会社 - Treasure is from the rice fields -Our Beginning- | Takara Shuzo (In Japanese)
* ↑ “から”, in 日本国語大辞典 [Nihon Kokugo Daijiten]‎ (in Japanese), concise edition, Tokyo: Shogakukan, 2006
* ↑ Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN
* ↑ Kindaichi, Kyōsuke et al., editors (1997), 新明解国語辞典 [Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten] (in Japanese), Fifth edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN
* ↑ NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tokyo: NHK Publishing, Inc., →ISBN

## Korean
### Hanja

宝 • (bo) (hangeul 보, revised bo, McCune–Reischauer po)
* jewel

## Vietnamese
### Han character

宝: Hán Nôm readings: bảo, báu, bửu
* Variant of 寶, see there for more details.

#### References

* Nom Foundation