{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "lek-char",
 "type": "tool",
 "names": {
  "name": "Lek char",
  "th": "เหล็กจาร",
  "rtgs": "lek chan",
  "said": "The iron stylus: the pen that writes on palm leaf, sharpened for skin"
 },
 "region": [
  "lanna",
  "mainland-southeast-asia"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "family": "poke"
 },
 "instrument": {
  "material": [
   "iron",
   "brass",
   "bamboo"
  ],
  "length_cm": 45,
  "length_note": "a working length of roughly 40–60 cm is usual; this site has measured none",
  "points": "a single point, or a point split to hold ink",
  "worked": "pushed",
  "hands": 2
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "The northern instrument: an iron stylus of the kind used to incise palm-leaf manuscripts, taken to skin.",
  "story": "The word *char* (จาร) is the verb for writing on a palm leaf with a stylus — scoring the surface and rubbing soot into the score so the letters appear. The same word, the same tool family, and in the north the same people: the men who could write the letters were the men who could put them on a body.\n\n*Inference —* that overlap explains something about the region's tattooing that a picture of a tiger does not. A Lanna yant is a written document. The tool is a pen, the surface is a person, and the fee has the same name as a teacher's fee because the transaction is a teaching one.",
  "notes": "Ten pages of the manuscript corpus this site counted carry the word เหล็กจาร. None of them is a tattooing manual; they are about writing."
 },
 "text_th": {
  "what": "เครื่องมือของทางเหนือ เหล็กจารแบบที่ใช้เขียนใบลาน นำมาใช้กับผิวหนัง",
  "story": "คำว่า *จาร* คือกริยาของการเขียนใบลานด้วยเหล็กแหลม ขูดผิวใบแล้วถูเขม่าลงไปให้ตัวอักษรปรากฏ คำเดียวกัน ตระกูลเครื่องมือเดียวกัน และทางเหนือก็เป็นคนกลุ่มเดียวกัน คนที่เขียนอักษรได้คือคนที่ลงอักษรบนตัวคนได้\n\n*อนุมาน —* ความทับซ้อนนี้อธิบายการสักของภูมิภาคได้มากกว่ารูปเสือหนึ่งตัว ยันต์ล้านนาคือเอกสารที่เขียนขึ้น เครื่องมือคือปากกา พื้นผิวคือคน และค่าครูมีชื่อเดียวกับค่าครูของการเรียนหนังสือ"
 },
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "sak-kha-lai",
   "as": "What it made.",
   "rel": "tradition"
  },
  {
   "to": "khem-sak",
   "as": "The same tool under the name the tattooers use.",
   "rel": "tool"
  },
  {
   "to": "tua-mueang",
   "as": "The letters it was made to write.",
   "rel": "term"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:corpus",
  "s:ms6968",
  "s:thwp-อ-กษรธรรมล-านนา"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "inference"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text.story": {
    "tier": "inference",
    "note": "this project's reading of the word and the overlap it implies"
   },
   "text.notes": {
    "tier": "harvested",
    "note": "counted in the wichaa.net corpus, 4,710 transcribed pages"
   },
   "text_th": {
    "tier": "inference",
    "note": "written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated"
   }
  }
 },
 "confidence": "medium",
 "tags": [
  "lanna",
  "script"
 ],
 "updated": "2026-09-19",
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "sak-kha-lai",
   "type": "tradition",
   "name": "Sak kha lai",
   "as": "The instrument."
  },
  {
   "from": "hnitkwasok",
   "type": "tool",
   "name": "Hnitkwasok",
   "as": "The same idea, one border east, and lighter."
  },
  {
   "from": "khem-sak",
   "type": "tool",
   "name": "Khem sak",
   "as": "Its older name in the north."
  },
  {
   "from": "words",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "What the word means first",
   "as": "Write."
  }
 ]
}