Amazing Chinese Characters (808) Radical Flag - 旗帜旁

Radical Flag is not a character but a single meaningful structure. Radical Flag is named by me because no one has ever discussed it, not listed in any dictionary. Its independent structure could not be found in dictionaries, I used Photos app on MacBook to remove other parts of compound character in cluding radical Flag to get its different scripts.

The shell bone script of Radical Flag is 

The left is a flagpole, the right is flying flag.

The bronze script of Radical Flag is

Similar to shell bone script but the flag is long and even touch on the ground.

The big seal script of Radical Flag is

Similar to shell bone script.

The small seal script of Radical Flag is

The left is not like a flagpole anymore, but similar to character Square - 方 (Post 273).

 

but not the same.

The right part is not like a flag, and disconnected from the flagpole. 

How could those big changes have happened? I don't know. But from then on, people have not known the fact that the two were originally united one.

The clerical script of character Radical Flag is

The left is character Square (Post 273), the right top is not a meaningful structure.

The song typeface of Radical Flag is 

Very similar to clerical script.

There is no pinyin for the independent structure. 

If you are interested in the evolution of character Flag (Post 717), you could click the following link to read the post.

https://learnchinesewithpictography.blogspot.com/2024/08/amazing-chinese-characters-717-troops.html 

I want to point out that the earliest script of character Flag is big seal, which means the character was created much later than the Radical Flag, which earliest script is shell bone. I think that the original Radical Flag was used as a character, it became a radical later on.

 

There are compound characters including radical flag:

族 (Post 718)，旋 (Post 719)，旅 (Post 720)，and more I have not discussed yet.

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (807) West - 西

 The shell bone script of character West is

What is this? It is window facing west. In ancient China, or modern China too, the house door is normally facing south. There is no window on the back. The windows are either facing East or West. There is character East - 东 (Post 77), therefore the above should be window facing West.

The bronze script of character West is

A window with different style. 

The small seal script of character West is 

The bottom is the window, the top and right is character Body - 尸 (Post 423). A person's shadow is reflected on the window during sunset in the west. It happens in sunrise, but because character East is already exist, we only consider west. 

The clerical script of character West is

I don't know where it is from, I guess it is a popular window at that time.

The song typeface of character West is 

The Pinyin of the character is Xi1.  

Amazing Chinese Characters (806) Tassel - 旒（㐬）

The big seal script of character Tassel is

The left is a flagpole, the horizontal turning down curve is the flag, which could be called Radical Flag. The rest under the flag is tassel hanging on the flag, which is the character meaning.

As time passed, it means the tassel hanging on front and back of the Emperor or Minister's official hat.

The small seal script of character Tassel is 

A tassel unit.

The clerical script of character Tassel is

As I mentioned above, the 方 + the top of right = Radical Flag, the rest is the tassel hanging on the flag.

The song typeface of character Tassel is 

Similar to clerical script.

The pinyin of character 旒 is Liu2. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (805) Thin - 瘦

 The big seal script of character Thin is

The left and top is Radical Sickness (Post 804), the right (except the top horizontal line) is character Old Man (Post 803). A old man is lying on the bed, implying that the old man is ill. An ill elderly is very thin, or slim. The character could mean either thin or slim.

The small seal script of character Thin is

Very similar to big seal script, but middle line of character Fire connects to the top dot to become a long line, which is confusing and wrong, because people would misunderstand, or unable to understand unless he digs the origin of the character.  

The clerical script of character Thin is 

A clerical script of Radical Sickness, plus character Old Man. 

The song typeface of character Thin is

Similar to clerical script.

 

The pinyin of character Thin is Shou4. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (804) Radical Sickness - 疒

The big seal script of Radical Sickness is

The right is character Bed Board - 爿 (Post 635). Because there was no paper in shell bone script time, all characters were written on bamboo slips, which are very narrow, only about 8 mm wide. Therefore many character were written vertically to get enough room for long lines. 

The left is character Person (Post 37) with two long dots which are drops of sweat. A man is lying on the bed with sweating, implying that the man is very ill. It means sickness, illness, disease, disorder, etc. all minor or severe health problems. At that time, it was a character.

The big seal script of character Sickness is

The character Bed Board is on the left, the right top horizontal line is bed headboard. The person is disappeared, which may be due to the character has not been used alone long time ago, just to be a radical, called Sickness Head to indicate the character is related to sickness, illness, disease, disorder, etc.

 

The small seal script of Radical Sickness is

Similar to big seal script.

 

The clerical script of Radical Sickness is

The two horizontal Ts become two dots, a dot is added on the bed headboard with unknown reason.

The song typeface of Radical Sickness is 

 

Similar to clerical script.

 

The pinyin of 疒 is Ne4. 
 

Amazing Chinese Characters (803) Old Man - 叟

The shell bone script of character Old Man is

The top is roof, the middle is character Fire (Post 26), the bottom is character Again - 又 (Post 102), meaning a hand. In the ancient time, fire was the most important thing to people. There were no matches, how to create fire and keep it burning is very critical, therefore, only the ones who had long experience in this field could do the job, normally it was the old men, were in charge of the job. 

Even though the character means Old Man, but the original meaning imply "The person who is in charge" too. We will see the meaning in character Sister in Law - 嫂. 

The bronze script of character Old Man is

The top is roof, the fire was kept under roof (may not inside of room) to avoid raining. There character Fire is under the roof, the hand on the bottom controls the fire. 

The small seal script of character Old Man is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Old Man is

The top is changed in a unknown way, no idea where it is from. The bottom is character Again - 又 (Post 102).

The song typeface of character Old Man is

Very similar to clerical script.

The Pinyin of character 叟 is Sou3. 

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (802) Haughty - 亢

The shell bone script of character Haughty is

A person opens his legs wide. It feels like something is stuck between his legs, unable to put the two legs together or closer, which describes haughty people's typical posture of superiority.

The character also means High, Hyperactive, etc. But I believe that the original meaning is Haughty. 

The bronze script of character Haughty is

Similar to shell bone script.

The big seal script of character Haughty is

The top body is disconnected from rest of body, nothing is between the two legs, which is not as good as the older scripts for the meaning.

The small seal script of character Haughty is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Haughty is 

Similar to small seal script but the top horizontal line becomes straight, the bottom legs become bent, lost the pictography.

The song typeface of character Haughty is

Similar to clerical script.

The pinyin of character 亢 is Kang4.