Amazing Chinese Characters (827) Strong - 壮（壯）

The bronze script of the character for Strong  

The left are two character of Bed Board (Post 635), here are Chopped Wood. The right is character of Stand (Post 70), which a big man stands on the ground. The big man who chopped a lot of wood is strong man. If you are a sergeant, and able to chop the wood, you are strong.

The big seal script of the character for Strong 

The left is chopped wood, the right is character Sergeant  (Post 826), which original means hoe, but from the bronze script, it should mean sergeant who holds a hoe, and chops the wood. 

The small seal script of the character for Strong 

 

The left is the character of Bed Board, here is chopped wood, the right is character sergeant.

The clerical script of the character for Strong 

The left is the clerical script of the character of Bed Board, the right it character of Sergeant. 

The song typeface of character for Strong

The left is simplified.

To be strong, you don't need to be a sergeant, and chop wood easily now. 

The Pinyin of the character for Strong is Zhuang4. 

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (826) Sergeant - 士

The bronze script of the character for Sergeant

One hoe. Here is the person who could make and use hoe. In the high antiquity, people used hoe to be tool for agriculture and weapon for battles. A person could be a sergeant in war with hoe, and a farmer in peaceful time with hoe too. But I wonder not everyone had hoe, only some people who were smart, educated, and financial independent have hoe because the metal was very expensive. Only sergeant could have hoe.

In comparison, let us see the character for King (Post 244)

A bigger hoe, only King could have.

As time passed, the character represents scholar, army officer. 

The big seal script of the character for Sergeant

The bottom is changed to one line for easy writing.

The small seal script of the character for Sergeant

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of the character for Sergeant

 Similar to big seal, and small seal scripts.

The song typeface of the character for Sergeant

 Similar to small seal, clerical scripts.

The Pin Yin of the character for Sergeant is Shi4. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (825) Entangled - 丩

The shell bone script of character for Entangled 

Two hooks or two ropes are entangled together. 

The bronze script of character for Entangled

Similar to shell bone script.

The small seal script of character for Entangled

Similar to older scripts, just more curves.

The standard script of character for Entangled 

I assume that the left is from the top hook, the right vertical straight line is from the bottom hook. Anyway, it would be impossible to know what it is if we had not had known the old scripts.

The Pinyin of the character is Jiu1.

The character is not used any more, it is replaced buy 纠 (Post 721). It is still exist in dictionary. More over, it is exist in some compound characters, such as 纠，赳，叫，收，etc.
 

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 and Province is Sheng3. But it has another Pinyin: Xing3, which is for Respect, Wake up to. 

Both are inspection. Sheng3 is to inspect to other people, or objects; Xing3 is to inspect the person self, how did I do? did I do anything wrong? how to avoid the mistakes in the future?

 

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.