Amazing Chinese Characters (527) Ditch - 沟（溝）

 The big seal script of character Ditch is

The left is character Water - 水 (Post 13), right one is character Fish Trap - 冓 (Post 524). The place with water and multiple fish traps is ditch. The river is not good for fish trap because the flow is too strong and fast. 

The small script of character Ditch is 

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Ditch is

Similar to older scripts.

The traditional song typeface for character Ditch is

Similar to clerical script.

The pinyin of the character is Gou1.

The simplified song typeface for character Ditch is

The left is Three Drops Radical, meaning is Water. The right one is character Hook - 勾 (Post 526), has nothing to do with character Fish Trap - 冓 (Post 524), the right side of traditional song typeface. Not only their writings are different, but their meanings are totally different. The only same the two have is the pronunciation Gou1. Besides, 勾 is only sometimes as the simplified part of 冓, not consistent. It is big topic, not discuss here. 

Anyway, this is a bad simplification. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (526) Sentence - 句 and Hook - 勾

 The shell bone script of the character Hook or Sentence is

The middle is character Mouth - 口 (Post 16), the two L alike are hooks. It means that the hooks hook mouth, e.g. fish mouth). 汉典（ Chinese Dictionary) says that the character Hook was same as character Sentence, which I guess that the sentence is hooked by words logically, the hook is hooked physically.

Other dictionaries don't have shell bone, bronze scripts of character Hook, they count the older scripts are just for character Sentence, not for Hook. 

I agree with 汉典 (Chinese Dictionary). I think that the meaning of Hook may be a little bit earlier than that of sentence, because hook is physical characteristics, visible. Sentence is flow of thinking, logical, not directly visible. I think that shell bone script is more to be Hook meaning.

The bronze script of the character is 

Hooks are on the top, and mouth is on the bottom. 

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script. 

The small seal script of the character is

The top hook is distorted, the lower hook changes a little.

The clerical script of character Hook is

The outside are two hooks, but the top hook is not like a hook anymore. The inside 厶 means "small", implying that the hooks are small.

The clerical scrkpt of character Sentence is

Inside is 口, not 厶 . Sentence is related to people speech (Mouth, 口). The two characters finally are completely distinguished each other at the Han Dynasty (About 202 B.C.  - 220 A.D.) when the communication became very important, one character has two different related meanings, which caused too much confusion. They must be distinguished without any delay.

The Pinyin for character Hook - 勾 is Gou1. The Pinyin for character Sentence - 句 is Ju4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (525) Bamboo Fish Trap - 篝

 The big seal script of character Bamboo Fish Trap is

The top is the Bamboo Head, the bottom is character Slowly (Post 251), meaning fish trap. The character above means Bamboo Fish Trap. We have character Fish Trap, why do we have a bamboo fish trap? I guess is that the fish trap could be made from rattan, and long twig. 

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of the character is

The song typeface of the character is

The Pinyin of the character is Gou1.

篝 is not used often. The most common use is "篝火", the bonfire at night for people gathering. In the ancient time, 篝火 may be the fire of bamboo workshop for making the bamboo products because the bamboo should be heated to be bent, so the fire is kept on. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (524) Connect - （冓）

 The shell bone script of character Connect is

which are two characters Slowly (Post 251), fish traps tail to tail connected.

The tail of fish trap is not very neat, but rough with many bamboo sticks

What I saw when I was a kid back to 1960s, and 1970s, the tail of the trap has much longer bamboo sticks, and the trap is much smaller. You could push two trap tails together without rope, they are connected tightly. 

The bronze script of character Connect.  

Similar to shell bone script.

The small script of the character is

Similar to older scripts, but the lines are smoother.

The song typeface of the character is

The top and the bottom are not mirror relationship anymore. The top is not similar to fish trap anymore, lost the pictography.

The Pinyin of the character is Gou4.

The simplified Chinese has abandoned the character, but it is widely exist in many compound characters. It is very important to understand this character in order to understand compound characters in which 冓 is  included.

Amazing Chinese Characters (523) Tooth - 牙

 The bronze script of character Tooth is 

which is a side view of the front teeth, upper teeth bite lower teeth. Some people believe that it is dog or animal front teeth, I agree.

There is another character Tooth - 齿 (Post 7), its shell bone script 

They are all the front view of the teeth, and they are human being teeth.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script, but the upper tooth touches the gums of lower tooth, which creates a little bit confusion.

The small seal script of the character is

The upper tooth is almost the same as the that of big seal script, but the lower tooth changes a lot: it touches the upper gums, and the lower horizontal line becomes a turning line, lost the pictography.

The clerical script of the character is

The upper tooth keeps a little bit similarity, the lower tooth is completely changed, no similarity at all.

The Pinyin of the character is Ya2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (522) Again - 再

The bronze script for character Again is

the bottom is a character Slowly - fish trap (see Post 251) made from bamboo which are still used nowadays. The top two horizontal lines are a bar for the trap to hang on when it is not used in the winter.

This kind trap is used for many years, or even tens years. Every spring, people put them in paddy or paddy canal to catch the loach.

In the fall, people hang them on the house beams, and reuse them again next year, and the year after next year.

The big seal script for the character is

One line on the top (beam), the bottom is character Slowly (Post 251), a fish trap.

The small seal script for the character is

Similar to its big seal script.

The clerical script for the character is

Similar to the old scripts.

Its Pinyin is Zai4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (521) Pretty Girl - 娟

 The big seal script of character Pretty is

The left is character Woman (Post 20), the right one is character Silkworm (Post 518). The character means that the little girl is pretty as a silkworm.

The small seal script of character Pretty is

The left is Woman, the right is Silkworm.

The clerical script of character Pretty is

Similar to older scripts, the left is Woman, the right is Silkworm.

The pinyin of the character is Juan1, same as 绢，涓. This is the difficulty to learn oral Chinese, you have too many characters pronounced exactly the same. However, learn Chinese from pictography, you will never be confused because each character is unique. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (520) Trickle - 涓

 The big seal script of character Trickle is

The left is Water (Post 13), the right is Silkworm. A tiny stream is like a small Silkworm (Post 518), tiny and weak. 

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to big seal script, the left is Water, the right is silkworm. 

The clerical script of the character is

The left is Radical Water, the right is Silkworm.

The song typeface of the character is

The Pinyin of character 涓 is Juan1. Same as 绢. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (519) Silk Cloth - 绢（絹）

 The big sell script of character Silk Cloth (one type of silk cloth) is

The left is the half part of character Silk (Post 36). The right one is character Silkworm - 肙 (Post 518). The character means that the silk cloth made from silk produced by silkworm.

Now we are sure, the character 肙 is silkworm. 

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to big seal script, the left is silk, the right is silkworm.

The clerical script of the character is 

The left is Radical Silk, the right is silkworm.

The song typeface of simplified character is

The left Radical Silk changed a little bit.

The Pinyin of character 绢 is Juan1.

Amazing Chinese Characters (518) Silkworm - 肙

 The earliest script of character Silkworm is small seal script,

Are there earlier scripts exist? Yes,  but they are not found yet. The above character means Silkworm, which is my explanation, not from the dictionary. The Xinhua Chinese Dictionary explains that the character means little insect, which is close, but not specific in which insect. You will see why I think that it is silkworm, not just general insect in next post (post 519) for character Silk Cloth - 绢.

The top is character Mouth (Post 16), and bottom part is character Meat or Body (Post 252). Mouth + Body = Silkworm? How? Good question. 

The above is small seal script, about 1500 years later than shell bone script, 1000 years later than bronze and big seal scripts. The small seal script normally dramatically changed the original shell bone, or bronze, or big seal forms. Let's see an example, the evolution of character High - 高 (Post 124).

The shell bone script of character High 

The big seal script

The small seal script

We can see that the top of shell bone, and big seal scripts are connected with the bottom, a drawing of a high tower. However in small seal script, there is 口 in the middle, no connection with top and bottom, lost the pictography.

Let us come back the character Silkworm, we could reasonably deduce that the top 口 was connected to the bottom 月 in shell bone, and big seal script, a drawing of silkworm. However the two parts is disconnected in small seal script above. The situation is similar to the evolution of character 高. 

The song typeface of character Silkworm is

The Pinyin of the character is Yuan1.

The character is only exist in traditional character, abandoned in simplified character. However it is widely exist in compound simplified characters with the same meaning, you see it often, but don't know where it is from, and what meaning it is.