Amazing Chinese Characters

Friday, July 9, 2021

Amazing Chinese Characters (428) Internode - 节 (節）

The bronze script of character Internode is

The top is character Bamboo or Bamboo radical (Post 23), the bottom left is a two internodes section of bamboo, the bottom right is a spoon alike connected to the left.

The big seal script the character is

The top is Bamboo, the bottom left is a bamboo bowl, the bottom right is a person sits there, who is eating or ready to eat the food in bamboo bowl.

Ancient Chinese used the bamboo internode as the bowl.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to the big seal script on the top, the bottom left changes to an open bottom, and the bottom right changes big, but it is a person just bending very much.

The clerical script of the character is

The top is bamboo, the bottom left is a bamboo bowl but not similar to the older scripts on the bottom, the right one is a simplified person.

The traditional song typeface of the character is

節

Very similar to clerical script.

The simplified song typeface of the character is

节

The top changed to Grass radical, the bottom only keeps the bottom right part of clerical script, which is "person" part, the bamboo bowl disappeared.

The pinyin of the character is Jie2.

The character also means Section, Joint, Knot, and Holiday, etc.

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Amazing Chinese Character (427) Eggs - 卵

The big seal script of character Eggs is

The dots are eggs, which are on the leaves.

The small seal script of the character is

The dots become short horizontal lines, which is the characteristics of small seal script: all dots are represented by short lines.

The clerical script of the character is

The dots are back, but the leaf on the left is not like leaf very much, the vertical line becomes curve, which may be for better looking? I don't know.

The song typeface of the character is

卵

Very similar to clerical script.

Its Pinyin is Luan3.

卵 are actually small eggs, such as insect eggs, or ovum. There is another character for bigger eggs: 蛋, I may discuss in another post. Normally, if the egg is as big as broad bean, or bigger, it is called 蛋, otherwise it is called 卵. But sometimes, 卵 means all eggs, including big ones, specially in the proverbs. Because ancient Chinese didn't distinguish big eggs from small eggs, 蛋 appeared in standard script, which was very late, at least 1500 years later than shell bone script.

Monday, July 5, 2021

Amazing Chinese characters (426) Supervise - 监（監）

The shell bone script of character Supervise is

The left is character Utensil - 皿（Post 144), the right is character Meet - 见（Post 201). A person is watching the utensil, which may have some food being cooked. 《象形字典》- Dictionary of Pictography explains "The person is looking himself at the water surface in utensil which is used as a mirror in ancient China". It is possible but from the script above, the person is on the side of the utensil, not in the position where he could see himself in the water surface at all. Besides, Supervise is to watch someone or something else not himself.

Why is watching the utensil with food Supervise? Because in ancient time, food was not enough, so cooking food is very important, the cooker had to cook the food very well to avoid any wasting by checking the food in the utensil constantly.

The bronze script of the character is

A person is checking the food in the utensil. It is very similar to character Face or Facing - 临 (Post 422).

which is a person checking the seedlings.

The big seal script of the character is

The eye on the top left is disconnected from the person on the right now, the bottom is unchanged.

The small seal script of the character is

The eye on the top left is disconnected from the person on the top right, the utensil moves to the bottom center.

The clerical script of the character is

The eye on the top left, the person on the top right is changed big, the body is a dot right now. The bottom is the utensil, changed a lot too.

The traditional song typeface of the character is

監

Same as the clerical script.

The simplified song typeface of the character is

监

The eye becomes two vertical lines which is lost the pictography completely in order to reduce the strokes. The person on the top right and the utensil on the bottom are unchanged.

The Pinyin of the character is Jian1.

监 means Jail as a noun, which is as popular as Supervise as a verb.

Saturday, July 3, 2021

Amazing Chinese characters (425) Heavy - 重

The shell bone script of character Heavy is

The left is a person (Post 37), the right one is a package which is heavy to the person who carries.

The bronze script of the character is

the left is a person, the right one is a heavy package.

Another bronze script of the character is

The person and the package are overlapped now, the bottom is character Soil (Post 223), which is heavy.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script. We can see the character Person

in the character.

The small script of the character is

Similar to the bronze and big seal scripts.

The clerical script of the character is

Some similarity to older script.

Song typeface of the character is

重

Same as clerical script.

Its Pinyin is Zhong4.

The character has another meaning: Repetition (Pinyin: Chong2), which I don't know where is from.