字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

island

On’yomi トウ
Kun’yomi しま

Origin

The character 島 combines two parts to represent an island. The right side, 鳥 (bird), serves as a sound hint—it tells you roughly how to pronounce the character, even though birds have nothing to do with islands. The left side, 山 (mountain), is the meaningful classifier that suggests the character relates to something geographic and elevated. Together, the shape represents a mountain or peak rising from the sea, which is essentially what an island is.

島 10 strokes

Components

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 群島 ぐんとう island group; archipelago
  • 孤島 ことう solitary island; isolated island
  • 諸島 しょとう archipelago; group of islands
  • 小島 こじま small island; islet
  • 千島 ちしま Kuril Islands; Kurile Islands
  • 中島 なかじま island in a pond or river
  • 島根 しまね Shimane (prefecture)
  • 島内 とうない on an island; on-island

Related kanji

Same sound component 鳥
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
10
Kangxi radical
46
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#245 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+05CF6