Amazing Chinese Characters (449) Front - 前

 The shell bone script of character Front is

The left one: the outside is character Walk (Post 96)

the inside: the top is Foot (Post 93)

the bottom is Boat (Post 117)

The right one is the one inside of the left one.

The big seal script of the character is

The top 

is Foot, the bottom 

is Boat.

A foot in front of moving boat means Front. 《象形字典》- Dictionary of Pictography explanation: Boat tracker pulls the boat upstream. 

I don't agree with this explanation because 3000+ ago, there was no big boat, no boat trackers needed to pull the boat. The boatman normally stands in the bow of the boat, uses a pole to control the boat. So the position of the boatman is the front of the boat.

Small seal script of the character is

The top and the lower left together is similar to the big seal script, what is the right lower part? It is character Knife (Post 61). Dictionary of Pictography thinks that is character Person (Post 37）, not Knife (Post 61). I disagree that again. It is Knife. The boatman holds a knife because many rivers at that time are covered spears of barbed wild grass flourished abundantly, or at least in summer. So the boatman had to cut the thorns in order to move his boat forward on the river.

The clerical script of the character is

The top is simplified to two dots and long horizontal stroke, the right lower part is Knife, the left lower part mistakenly written as character Moon (Post 53), it looks like Boat, but not. The meaning is totally different. 

The song typeface of the character is 

前

Same as the clerical script.

The pinyin of the character 前 is Qian2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (448) Flat - 扁

 The big seal script of character Flat is

The top

 is character 户 - Household (Post 271), 

the bottom 

is character 册 - Book (Post 62), a connected multiple writing bamboo slips, which is very thin and flat.

The character original means door plaque, which is a board with brush writing hanging on the door. In ancient time, it was bamboo book.

As time past, it represents Flat more often, people created another character 

just for Door Plaque to replace its original meaning.

The small script of the character Flat is

similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of the character Flat is

similar to old scripts.

The song typeface of the character is

扁

Very similar to clerical script.

The pinyin of the character is Bian3. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (447) Death - 亡

 The shell bone script of character Death is

a person

holding a shield to defend enemy's attack, which may cause death, may not.

The bronze script of the character is

The person is on the left, the shield on the right, similar to the shell bone script except flipped 180 degree. 

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to big seal script except the bottom horizontal-down turn, which is typical small seal script stroke, making the stroke more smooth and complex.

The clerical script of the character is

You may see a little similarity to the big seal script, but it is changed so big, not easy to see, and not feel good for this kind change. Anyway it lost the pictography of original form.

The song typeface of the character is

亡

Very similar to clerical script.

The character originally means "Defending and escaping", not "death". But right now, the main meaning is "Death" especially used alone, but the meaning of "Escape" is still exist especially when used with other character to form a two characters word.