Amazing Chinese Characters (491) Family Name - 姓

 The shell bone script of character Family Name is 

The left part is character Living (Post 352), here it means Producing or Giving birth. The right part is character Woman (Post 20). In the ancient time, people knew only who was their mother. Children from one mother are a family, they should have a same family name after mother's family name. 

No bronze and big seal scripts are found for this character, which is unusual because most of time, the shell bone script is lack because it is the oldest script, the bronze script characters are not many, it may be missing too. However, the big seal script characters are a lot. This is my first time to see character with shell bone script found, but not big seal script. 

The reason why the situation occurred is unknown. It may be the society changed to patriarchal society in which family is centered on father, the family name is after Father's family name. 

Matriarchal society in China when was about 10,000 - 6,000+ years ago, from about 5,500+ to 4,000+ ago, China was in patriarchal society, 500 - 2,000 years earlier than what the shell bone with shell bone script carved on was found. If the shell bone script of character Family Name was created in matriarchal society, the shell bone script would be pushed at least 500 years earlier, which needs experts to prove.

The small seal script of the character is

The left is character Woman, the right is character Living. The two flipped positions from shell bone script, which happened in character Good - 好 (Post 27).

The clerical script of the character is 

Similar to small seal script.

The song typeface of the character is

姓

Same as clerical script.

The Pinyin of character 姓 is Xing4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (490) Flat - 平

 The bronze script of character Flat is

character At - 于 (Post 488) plus two dots, the middle is a long vertical line, a flow blow out smoothly, no tone change, a flat and continuous tone. In comparison with the bronze script of Modal Particle 乎 (Post 489), 

The top vertical lines disconnect with top and bottom two horizontal lines to indicate that the air flow is strong with rich variety of intermittent tones. 

The big seal script of the character is 

Similar to bronze script. 

Let's see the big seal of 乎 (Post 489)

Very similar but the middle top vertical short line is disconnected with top and middle horizontal lines.

The small seal script of the character is

An even, symmetrical Pi on the top, with means the air flow is even, smooth, no change. Let's compare with the small seal script of 乎 (Post 489)

Very similar to small seal script of character Flat, but the top uneven, unsymmetrical Pi, which means the air flow is rich variety. 

The clerical script of the character is

Very symmetric, which means the air flow is even, continuous, and flat.

Compare to character 乎

Not flat horizontal line on the top indicates the air flow is not even, intermittent. 

The Pinyin of character Flat - 平 is Ping2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (489) Modal Particle - 乎

There are many modal particles in Chinese, today I introduce one of them.

Its shell bone script

The horizontal line is a bamboo tube of Chinese ancient wind music instrument (Post 488). The long vertical line is the blowing mouth and tube. The top three short lines are air flow from the tube strongly, which means that the sound is high and loud. The top line is missing, which may be different but similar instrument

The bronze script of the character is

Similar to shell bone script, but an extra horizontal line on the top, which may be a movable cover, the out air flow is strong to lift it up high.

Let's compare it with character At - 于 (Post 488)

No dots at all, which means that there is no air flow, just a music instrument idle there.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script is 

Similar to older scripts, but the top becomes unsymmetrical Pi, which may mean the flow is uneven.

The clerical script of the character is

Changed a lot, more like big seal script. 

The Pinyin of the character is Hu1.

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (488) At or Prepositions - 于 (於）

 The shell bone script of At or Similar Prepositions is

 

an ancient wind instrument made from bamboo.

 

 

The horizontal lines are bamboo tubes, and the vertical bent line is the blowpipe.

 

There is another shell bone script of the character 

 

The left top is mouth (see Post 152), the left outside is the bamboo tubes or other materials, inside is the music wind tubes (the script we talked above), the right part is a hand playing the sound holes. The 于 inside is free reed.

The bronze script of the character is

 

similar to shell bone script.

 

The big seal script of the character is

similar to older scripts.

 

The small seal script of the character is

 

the blowpipe becomes two turning curves, but the top two short horizontal lines are not connected, which some experts think that the character is Deficit or Deficiency: the air flow is not strong enough to make sound. I will discuss the character Deficit in a different post.

The other script for the music instrument is 

a bamboo head is added over the 亏 to indicate that is made from bamboo, which is instrument, not an adjective.

 

The clerical script of the character is

similar to older scripts except small seal script. Right now the meaning of the character is not music instrument any more. 

 

Another clerical script of the character is

 

which is the wind music instrument, the original meaning of the character. 

The song typeface of the character is

 

 

The pinyin of both character is Yu2.

 

Let's take a look another character with the same meaning.

 

The bronze script of the character is

 

The left is a bird, the right is a person who flys as a bird.

 

The big seal script of the character 

The left is character Square, which should be a mistakenly written for the bird, we can see some similarity between the two. The right top is character Person, the bottom 二 is the sky or clouds (Post 206). The character means that a person flys in the sky above the clouds like a bird.

 

The small seal script of the character is

 

The left is similar to shell bone script, the right is similar to big seal script.

 

The clerical script of the character is

Similar to big seal script.

The song typeface of the character is

 

於

Same as the clerical script, which is the traditional character for 于.

 

The Pinyin of the character is Yu3.

 

The meaning of character 於 gradually become At, On, Of, To, From, In, and many other Prepositions. Because its pronunciation is same as character 于, so it has replaced the character in most of times in traditional Chinese. However, in simplified Chinese, 于 substitutes 於, the latter is eliminated. We can't say that 于 is simplified form of 於, because both existed since shell bone script. They just merged into 于 in simplified Chinese.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (487) Sugar - 糖

 The big seal script of character Sugar is

The left is character Rice (Post 163), the right is the character Tang (Post 485), which means to block a gap. Before I explain this character, I would like to introduce a related character Mud.

The big seal script of character Mud is

The left is character Water (Post 13), the right is character Tang. This character means Mud used to block the gap, the ancient Chinese used soil to block gap (see character Pond, Post 486), but sometimes, if the soil is too dry to be sticked there, therefore, adding some water to make mud would be much better to block the gap . 

Here ancient Chinese focused on the materials used for blocking the gap, not the result of blocking. Otherwise, the character Mud should mean Pond because it has Water.

In the character Sugar, the character Rice on the left means that the sugar was made from Rice including other grains because Radical Rice means all grains. Also, the character means the semi-fluid candy made from rice because people didn't know how to purify the sugar, only make Mud-alike candy. Because it is sweet, people called it Sugar but not the same pure white sugar today.

The small seal script of the character is

The left is character Rice, the right is character Tang.

The clerical script of the character is

The left is Rice, the right is Tang.

The song typeface of the character is

糖

Same as the clerical script.

The Pinyin of the character is Tang2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (486) Pond - 塘

 The big seal script of character Pond is

The left is character Soil (Post 223), the right is character is character Tang (Post 485), which means blocking a gap. Using soil to block or half block a gap or hole to make depression area to become a pond. 

The small seal script of character Pond is 

The left is character Soil, the right is the character Tang, similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of the character is 

The left is Radical-Soil, the right is character Tang.

The song typeface of the character is

Same as the clerical script.

The pinyin of the character is Tang2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (485) Tang - 唐

Chinese call themselves Tang People, here Tang is Tang Dynasty, one of two great dynasties in Chinese history. Tang is used as a surname only, almost no other meaning anymore. 

Let's see what the original meaning of the character.

The shell bone script of character Tang is

Dictionary of Pictography explains it as that the Y is a head down person who put a bucket, 口 cross the Y, put into the bottom 口, which is a pond. He/she is taking water from the pond with bucket. 

The character means Pond.

However, this explanation is not good. Why is the person head down? What is the top of Y? Why is the top bucket even bigger than the pond? 

What my explanation is that the top is a container which some mud inside, the bottom is a big crack, or unwanted opening, or gap. The character means to block or seal the gap, or crack or opening.  The Y should be a forked stick.

The bronze script of character Tang is

If the top is bucket, why it has so big gap, could it take the water without leaking? The pond is even smaller. But if we think that the top is a container with mud, which is more reasonable.

The small script of character Tang is 

The top right now has two hands, one on each side.

The clerical script of the character is

which is changed very big. The top 厂 may be the character Working Site, the middle is character 聿, or 尹, both means "A hand holding a stick". The bottom is the gap. 

The pinyin of the character is Tang2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (484) Group - 群

 The bronze script of character Group is

The top is character Monarch (Post 346), here is shepherd who hold a stick or whip. The bottom

is Sheep (Post 6). here means a flock of sheep. The character gradually expanded its meaning to group of people.

The big seal script of the character is

The top is character Monarch, and the bottom is Sheep.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to older scripts: Monarch on the top, Sheep in the bottom.

The clerical script of the character is

Right now the Monarch is on the left, and the Sheep is on the right. Why? I think the reason is that there was no paper before clerical script (Han Dynasty), people wrote or drew characters on bamboo slips, very narrow, difficult or impossible to draw horizontally. The paper was invented in Han Dynasty, people could write characters horizontally, they just move the top Monarch down to left, making the character wider and more stable.

The pinyin of the character is Qun2.  

Amazing Chinese Characters (483) Wait - 候

 The bid seal script of character Wait is

The left part is a person, the right top is an animal head, the the bottom is character Marquis (Post 481). A person is waiting for his turn of archery in archery range.

Dictionary of Pictography explains the meaning of the character is "(People) hold bow and arrows hide in the mountain, wait an opportunity of hunting wild animals.". It may be true, but there is no sign of mountain, no bow in the character. I prefer to waiting for his turn to archery in range. 

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of the character is

The left is Person Radical, the right is a short vertical line plus archery range. Why is there a short vertical line? It is not suppose to have that line if we compare it with small seal script. 

I guess that it may be added to distinguish the character from the character Marquis (Post 481),

The Pinyin of the character is Hou4.