Amazing Chinese Characters (824) Save - 省

The shell bone script of the character for Save 

The bottom is character Eye (Post 17)

The top is character Grass (Post 772)

An eye is looking for a grass on it, which means that the eye is checking every tiny details to find out where is necessary, where is wasting like a keen eye. In order to save something, you need this kind eye. 

The character changed the meaning to more introspection such as Reflection, Wake up to. The character also has meaning of Province, which was original used as Imperial Resident Office, which was to supervise and regulate the local governments in operations and financial situation.  

The bronze script of the character for Save

 

Similar to shell bone script.

The small seal script of the character for Save

The top 屮 is the  grass，the bottom 目 is the eyelid. The 目 is a vertical eye. 

The clerical script of the character for Save

The top is character for Young (Post 790), which is wrong in meaning, and no similarity to old scripts. The bottom is character Eye. 

The Pinyin of the character for Save is Sheng3.

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (823) Sickbed - 疒

The shell bone script of character for Sickbed 

The right is character Bed (Post 150), the left is a person, the two beads of sweat. A sweating patient is lying on the sickbed.  

The big seal script of character for Sickbed

The left is the bed, the top horizontal line may be a headboard, which could be specific for sickbed, that means no this headboard for normal beds at that time. The headboard was for patient to sit on the bed, which may be so specific, so the patient is disappeared,  everyone at that time could understand that it is a sickbed.

The small seal script of character for Sickbed

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character for Sickbed 

The left two horizontal T become two dots to simplify the writing, and a dot is added on the top horizontal line for unknown reason.

The song typeface of character for Sickbed 

 Very similar to clerical script.

The Pinyin of character for Sickbed is Ne4.

疒 has not been used as a single character for long time, only exist in dictionary. But it is exist in many compound characters, we will see in future posts. It is called Radical Sickness.

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (822) Sunlight during sunrise - 昜

The shell bone script of character for the Sunlight during Sunrise 

The top is character Sunrise - 旦 (Post 100), the bottom is vertical bar, which someone thinks to be a tree. I think it means a high position where the sun rises high over the horizon. 

The bronze script of character for the Sunlight during Sunrise 

The top is character Sunrise, the bottom three left falling lines are the sunlight, which clarify that the character means the sunlight in the sunrise, not the sun itself. It is not clear in shell bone script.

The small seal script of character for the Sunlight during Sunrise

The top is the character Sunrise, the bottom is the sunlight. 

The clerical script of character for the Sunlight during Sunrise

The top is the character Sunrise, the bottom is changed a lot in comparison with small seal script, difficult to explain the meaning of each stroke, but still similar to old scripts.

The song typeface of character for the Sunlight during Sunrise

Similar to small seal script.

The pinyin of the character is Yang2.

The character is not used along, but exist in many compound characters.

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (821) Zheng - 郑（鄭）

The bronze script of the character for Zheng

Same as the bronze script of the character for Libation (Post 769), which original was not distinguished the ceremony and the celebrant. As time passed, confusion was created, therefore, people add character 邑 - Resident or Villager (Post 561) on the right to represent the celebrant, the original form like the above to represent the ceremony.

The small seal script of the character for Zheng

The left is small seal script of the character for Libation, the right is small seal script of the character for Resident or Villager, people who preside the ceremony. 

The clerical script of the character for Zheng

The left is character Libation, the right is right ear radical, simplified for character Resident or Villager. 

The simplified song typeface of the character for Zheng

 

The left is character Close, which is definitely wrong. It may be from the cursive script, but it is not right for standard form of the character .

Its Pinyin is Zheng4. 

As those ceremonies increased, more people did this job, therefore, people call them 郑 - Zheng. Another possibility is the empire granted the imperial surname 郑 - Zheng.

Right now, its major meaning (95% times) is surname. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (820) Seven - 七

The shell bone script of the character for Seven 

The character original meaning is Cut: cut a stick into two parts.  One line is the stick, another is the knife. Some experts believe that the ancient Chinese were struggled to invent the character for seven, therefore, they borrowed the above character "Cut" because it pronunciation is same (Assume but highly possible). In sometime, the above character had two meanings: seven, and cut.

The bronze script of the character for Seven 

Similar to shell bone script.

The big seal script of the character for Seven 
 

Similar to older scripts.

At that time, people met a problem: the character for Ten is almost same as the character for Seven.

Let us see the small seal script of the character for Ten (Post 739)

 

Which is very similar to older scripts of character for Seven.

In order to distinguish the two characters, ancient Chinese had to make some change, therefore, we see 

The small seal script of the character for Seven 

The vertical straight line becomes curve line. 

The change may have started with big seal script, I just couldn't find the big seal script of the character for Ten, but other evidence proved the change happened in big seal script.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the original meaning of the character Seven is Cut, people borrowed the character Cut for character Seven. After borrowing, people might have used the meaning of seven much more than the meaning of cut. As time passed, people forgot it also means Cut or were confused on which meaning it stands for in the text. In order to remove the confusion, ancient Chinese in Zhou Dynasty, people added a radical Knife to character Seven to mean Cut. 

The big seal script of the character for Cut

The left is character Seven, the right is character Knife. The character Seven has diagonal line in horizontal direction, and curve in vertical direction. The change was forced to distinguish character Seven from character Ten. 

The evolution of character for Cut

This kind borrow - return: borrow, takeover, return a different character is called "Fake Borrow".

The clerical script of the character for Seven

 

 The horizontal line, and down-curve right line replaced the vertical straight line to make it different from character Ten.

The song typeface of the character for Seven

Similar to clerical script.

The pinyin of the character Seven is Qi1. 

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (819) All/Every - 凡

The shell bone script of the character for All/Every 

a brick mold. Because all bricks are from the same size mold, they are identical, we can say "all" or "every" bricks are same, which is the original meaning of the character.

The character means Normal, Ordinary often. Because the brick is same as other bricks, each one is normal. If one is different, it is unique or special.  

The bronze script of the character for All/Every

Similar to shell bone script.

The big seal script of the character for All/Every

 

Similar to older scripts.

 

The small seal script of the character for All/Every

 

No similarity to older scripts. I don't know where it was from.

 

The clerical script of the character for All/Every 

 

More like older scripts than small seal script. The lower line in older scripts is replaced by a dot.

 

The song typeface of the character for All/Every

 

Similar to clerical script.

 

The Pinyin of the character for All/Every is Fan2. 

 

 

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (818) Chimney - 囱

The big seal script of the character for Chimney  

Actually, back to 3500+ years ago, there was no chimney. There was no inside kitchen, people made fire , cook outdoors. The above is the earliest window. As time passed, people made mud stove half inside. The completely inside mud stove appeared in about 2000 years ago, more then 1000 years later. The window was chimney too at that time.

The small seal script of the character for Chimney

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of the character for Chimney

Some similarity to small seal could be seen, the rounded lines become sharp turns, and lines inside lost contact with the box, which is not real and not photographic any more.

The song typeface of the character for Chimney is 

Similar to clerical script.

The pinyin of the character is Cong1.