Loek van Kooten, MAWhat does the Japanese word for "to write," 写, have to do with a magpie? An actual magpie, the bird.
Almost nothing, and that is exactly the lesson. The older form of the kanji is 寫: a roof (宀) with 舄 underneath. And 舄 was, originally, a drawing of a magpie. But inside 寫 the magpie is not there for its meaning. It is there purely for its sound, a phonetic tag and nothing more. The bird lent its sound to "write" and then flew off without leaving a single feather of meaning behind. The meaning comes from elsewhere. The old sense was to carry something in under a roof and set it down.
Carry a text over, and you copy it. Copy it, and you write it. It is also why a photograph is 写真, literally a truth carried over. This is the single most useful thing a beginner can learn about kanji. A huge share of them are built exactly like this: one part for the meaning, one part purely for the sound. Hunt for a reason the magpie "means" writing and you will tie yourself in knots, because it does not. Knowing which parts carry meaning and which are just sound is the real skill.
Made-up mnemonics are single-use fiction. Real components are keys that keep opening doors. That is the whole method at learn.japanology.nl (Photo: Eurasian magpie, Pica pica. Public domain. ) #Japanese #kanji #LearnJapanese #日本語 #kanjietymology #studyjapanese #日本語勉強