Are there no rounded or circular strokes in any 漢字？


Forgive me if this question seems foolish, but perhaps curiosity has gotten
the best of me 'cause I am asking away. Every time I sit down to practice some
good ol' kanji writing, I can't help but notice the lack of rounded shapes,
circles, spheres, etc.. Sure, there are some curved strokes, but even in words
that speak of "circular" and "rounded" things (丸、円...), there is nothing
remotely "round" in the kanji to speak of.

I know very little about the etymology of kanji, so perhaps I am embarrassing
myself by asking this question. However, I am curious to know -- were there
ever circular strokes in kanji? What's the story, if there is one at all...?




No need to be embarrassed. We all start somewhere.

I first erroneously answered by saying, "there are no rounded stokes in
Japanese kanji." However, only after I submitted my answer did I notice you
were specifically asking if there were _ever_ rounded strokes. D'oh!

Okay, so... to start, there are, as you know, no current circular strokes in
kanji.

However, if you go back far enough into the origins of kanji, you can see that
[they were based on
pictographs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_signs_in_China#Ji.C7.8Eh.C3.BA),
which can be curvy and all sorts of shapes. So, in a way, yes, there used to
be rounded shapes.

The trick is where do you draw the line on when they can be considered
"Japanese" kanji. As you know, kanji was brought over from China and then
adapted to fit Japanese needs.

It has evolved, but I believe that by the time Japan started using the
characters, they were already formalized on the mainland and no longer had any
distinct circles. (History available
[here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#History)).

So I think a sensible answer could be that _Japanese_ kanji has never had
round shapes.

However, I think one could argue that kanji _itself_ , if you go back far
enough, had some circular(ish) shapes in it.

