A report on Radical (Chinese characters)

That is, pictograms extended from literal objects to take on symbolic or metaphoric meanings; sometimes even displacing the use of the character as a literal term, or creating ambiguity, which was resolved though character determinants, more commonly but less accurately known as "radicals" i.e. concept keys in the phono-semantic characters.

Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the Erya predates it), it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them, as well as the first to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components called radicals (bùshǒu 部首, lit. "section headers").

The second system of dictionary organization is by recurring graphic components or radicals.

The 214 Kangxi radicals, also known as the Zihui radicals, form a system of radicals of Chinese characters.

They are grouped under the 214 radicals and arranged by the number of additional strokes in the character.

In the history of Chinese lexicography, nearly all dictionaries were collated by graphic systems of character radicals, first introduced in the Shuowen Jiezi.

4) identifying fundamental components of Han radicals; and

The "Complete List of Simplified Characters" employs character components, not the traditional definition of radicals. A component refers to any conceivable part of a character, regardless of its position within the character, or its relative size compared to other components in the same character. For instance, in the character 摆, not only is 扌 (a traditional radical) considered a component, but so is 罢.

Often, the semantic component is on the left, but there are many possible combinations, see Shape and position of radicals.

There are still many Unicode characters that cannot be written using most IMEs, one example being the character used in the Shanghainese dialect instead of, which is U+20C8E ( with a radical).