In Japanese texts, you will often come across the word 叩く, but strangely enough, it is written with a character that falls outside the list of characters for general use. And it’s such a charmingly simple character! Okay, I find characters with a simple graphic appearance charming, appealing, though not everyone may agree with me on that. But why does a character for a word that has the basic meaning of “to hit, to knock”, etc., consist of “mouth” 口 and “kneeling, sitting person” 卩? (I know that 卩 in its current form doesn’t really look like a kneeling person, but that’s another story.)
Ochiai mentions that, besides kneeling, 卩 can also mean “ritual practice” or “a prisoner” in compounds. Does hitting have something to do with rituals? Were prisoners typically beaten? It’s vague, and I haven’t found a solution yet. Or maybe I have. 叩 is my latest addition to my list of characters with their graphic development explained.