Amazing Chinese Characters (442) Delicious or Fresh - 鲜（鮮）

  The bronze script of character Delicious is

The top is character Sheep or Goat (Post 6), the bottom is character Fish (Post 2). Ancient people didn't have enough food in most of time, when they had chance to cook lamb and fish together, the cooked soup or meat is so delicious that they created the character by putting the two character together to express the unforgettable taste. This is a typical ideogram character: use the two or more pictographic characters which are drawings of the physical objects to express non - physical meaning like adjective term.

There is another bronze script of the character is

The left is the character Fish, the right is character Sheep or Goat. The structure becomes left - right from top - bottom of bronze script.

The big seal script of the character is

The top is character Sheep or Goat, and bottom is character Fish. I cut off the bottom, and enlarge it below.

which is one of character Fish because there are many different forms of each character before small seal script which unified Chinese: one character is only one form.

The small seal script of the character is

which is similar to the second bronze script.

The clerical script of the character is

Similar to small seal script.

The song typeface of traditional character is

鮮

Same as the clerical script. The left is traditional character 魚, the right one is same (羊 has only one form shared by both simplified and traditional characters, most of characters are in this situation)

The song typeface of simplified script is

鲜

The left character Fish 鱼, the right 羊 is same. This is a type of simplified characters: one part is simplified but another or other part(s) is a form(s) shared by both simplified or traditional characters.

The pinyin of the character is Xian1.

鲜 means Fresh too. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (441) Orifice - 孔

 The bronze script of character Orifice is

A hair on the top head of a Child (Post 21).

or

The hair is on upper right.

Dictionary of Pictography explains that there is a bunch of hair as a sign of adulthood. But there are other explanations, the one agreed by many people is that the baby's fontanelle which is like a small hole, which makes sense to me. The upper right curve is an indicator for the fontanelle.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to the second bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

The left is character Child, the right one is the curve separated from the head of child right now.

The clerical script of the character is

The left is character Child, the right one is the curve.

The song typeface of the character is

孔

Same as clerical script.

The pinyin of the character is Kong3.

Some points I want to emphasize for character 孔

1, 孔 is small, and opening ends hole, which could be in/on every where.

2, 孔 is a popular surname. Confucius - 孔子，his family name is 孔.

Amazing Chinese Characters (440) Abandon - 弃 (棄）

 The shell bone script of character Abandon is

The top is upside down character Child, the bottom are two hands. In ancient time, because there were not enough foods, sometimes, people just abandoned the new born babies. 

Another shell bone script 

The top is a baby, the middle is a bamboo basket, the bottom are two hands. People put the baby in the basket to abandon.

The bronze script of the character is

The top middle is a upside down baby two hands on bottom sides, the rest is the bamboo basket.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

Still some similarity to old scripts.

The clerical script of the character is

The top baby is not like baby anymore. the bottom two hands become two dots.

The song typeface of traditional character is

棄

Similar to clerical script.

The song typeface of simplified character is

弃

The top is same as that in traditional character, but the bottom is totally changed.

You may see often the clerical script like the one below

which is the simplified character.

The pinyin of the character is Qi4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (439) Take - 取

 The shell bone script of character Take is

The left 

is character Ear (Post 42).

The right is a hand.

There are many explanations for the script, the major three are

1, Cut enemy's ears to show how many one killed.

2, Cut wild animal's ears to show many one killed

3, Cut wild animal's ear to reward the hunter (the rest is shared with whole tribe)

I prefer to number 3, which has the meaning of "Take".

The bronze script of the character is

The ear on the left, and hand on the right, even though they are not like the ear or the hand as much as the shell bone script. 

The big seal script of the character is

The left is ear, the right is hand.

The small seal script of the character is

The left is ear, and the right is hand.

The clerical script is 

The left is character 耳 - ear, the right is character 又 -  Again (Post 102), which means Hand originally and here.

The song typeface of the character is

取

Same as the clerical script.

The Pinyin of 取 is Qu3.

Amazing Chinese Characters (438) Thousand - 千

 The shell bone script of character Thousand is

which is a person

and one horizontal line on the leg.

What does it mean? There are many explanations. Dictionary of Pictography gives its explanation: "(The person) is keeping moving". There is another explanation:"Many many people (slaves) are tied each other".

Let's look the shell bone script of character Abreast - 并 (Post 115)

Two person walk together and keep the step withe each other. So the horizontal line means Walking.

In ancient China, people measure the land by steps because there was no measure instrument, no long ruler to measure big land. They estimate the land by how many steps in length and width. Thousand-step might be a number most used in measuring land, so it is reasonable for them to use the drawing of a person with a horizontal line, an indicative stroke, to represent Thousand steps. This is my explanation, the best one I feel. 

The bronze script of the character is

Which is similar to the shell bone script.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to the older scripts.

The small seal script of the character is

Which is a little bit strange, but actually is a small seal of character Person 

just turns a little bit to let the person straight up, plus a horizontal line. 

The clerical script of the character is

Which is super simplified of small script of the character: the top left falling stroke is the arm of the person, the person body except the arm is now a vertical line, the indicative horizontal line is unchanged.

The song typeface of the character is

千

Same as the clerical script.

The Pinyin of the character is Qian1.

Amazing Chinese Characters (437) Temple - 寺

 The bronze script of character Temple is

The bottom is character Again - 又 (Post 102), means "Hand".

The top is character Of - 之 (Post 370)

Which means "Right here", "From here", "Here is our base".

Some people think that it is character Stop or Foot - 止 (Post 93). 

Which implies that Solid (can't be moved), Stable, etc.

The two meanings are close. But it likes more like character Of - 之. The top should be mainstay, either the physical buildings or government power, or laws. It is impossible for people to move it by hands. However, if you think that it is the character Stop, which makes sense too.

The character originally means the buildings of Dynasty (government), when Buddhism was introduced into China, it is said that the buddha was originally settled in this kind buildings, or similar buildings. Gradually its meaning changed to Temple, the meanings of government building or power or laws disappeared because the temples moved out of the government buildings.

The big seal script of the character is

The top is character Stop now, the bottom is hand.

The small seal script of the character is

The top is character Of. As I mentioned above, the meanings of the two characters are close, and they look like similar, so people wrote back or forth, but the basic meaning is not changed.  

The bottom is character Chinese Inch - 寸 (Post 98), in ancient time, 寸 and 手 - hand, are exchangeable.

The clerical script of the character is

The top two curve become one straight horizontal line, making the top as character Soil - 土 (Post 223). The bottom is character Chinese Inch, the curves are changed to straight lines. It is typical for clerical script to make most curves to straight lines in order to be able to write faster but losing the pictography. 

The song typeface of the character is

寺

Same as clerical script.

The pinyin of 寺 is Si4.

Right now, 寺 is most of time specifically for Buddhist temple unless there is explanation otherwise. Most of other temples (if not all) are called 庙 (Post 318). People normally use "寺庙“ (Put the two characters together) to mean all religious temples.

Amazing Chinese Characters (436) Five - 五

 The shell bone script of character Five is

There are many explanations on what the above X means, most are too complicated and confusing. The only one I think is the most reasonable is that there are four end points and one cross point in the X, total five the most important points.

The bronze script of character Five is

Two horizontal lines connected on the top and bottom points, making five nodes. Ancient Chinese records things by tying knots, here is five knots to represent number Five.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to older scripts.

The clerical script of the character is

Change the X right stroke to untouched top horizontal line connected to a vertical line touched bottom, the reason why it changes is unknown. But the clerical script is created to speed the writing, doesn't pay any attention to original pictography. So many is not most clerical script characters change dramatically without much connection to the older script, which lost the pictography. The standard script and song typeface are based on the clerical script, so the two have not pictographic too.

The song typeface of the character is

五

Same as the clerical script.

The pinyin for character Five is Wu3.

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (435) Four - 四

 The shell bone script of character Four is

Which is four horizontal lines, an indicative character. 

The bronze script of the character is

Different from the shell bone script. There are many explanations on the above script, the one I trust is that a very popular and important thing in ancient time is to divide the meat, the above is a meat divided into four pieces. I guess that most of time the meat was divided by four, which is easy to do. Divided by two is too big, by three is still too big, by five is difficult to do, so by four is most often. 

The above is a simplified image of division of meat. We can imagine that the inside is X, two diagonal cut the meat to 4 pieces. 

Another explanation is that the middle is character Eight - 八, which original meaning is Divide. Like the discussion above, a meat is normally divided into 4 pieces. 

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script, the inside is more like character 八.

The clerical script of the character is

Similar to older scripts.

The song typeface of the character is

四

The pinyin of the character is Si4.
 

Amazing Chinese Characters (434) Substitute or Replace - 替

 The bronze script of character Substitute or Replace is

The top are two people stand side by side and open their mouths big, the bottom is character Say - 曰 (Post 341) . They are two guards who exchange passwords to go substitution.

The big seal script of character Substitute or Replace is

The top is character Side by Side - 並 (Post 241), the bottom is character Say - 曰.

The small seal script of the character is

The bottom is character Say, the top are two characters of Before or In Advance - 先 （Post 231), the top of 先 is foot, the bottom is person, which means that the two guards are walking (foot is in front of person) when they substitute.

The clerical script of the character is

The bottom is character Say, the top are two characters of Gentleman - 夫 (Post 76). Guards are gentlemen. 

The song typeface of the character is

替

Same as the clerical script.

The Pinyin of the character is Ti4.