Amazing Chinese Characters (672) Wish - 祝

 The bronze script of character Wish is

The left is character Display, the right is character Elder Brother, which may be the one who is older than you or other people, has more experience, most respected. He is kneeling in front of a display table with some foods for pray. He is praying for good wish for people he represents. 

The big seal script of character Wish is

The left is character Display, the right is character Elder Brother without kneeling down because the pray didn't need kneeling down any more, or just a simplification of the character.

The small seal script of character Wish is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Wish is

The left is Radical Display, the right is character Elder Brother.

The Pinyin of the character is Zhu4.

The character means Congratulation on, not Prey in most of time now.

Amazing Chinese Characters (671) Raise - 养（養）

 The shell bone script of character Raise is

The left is modified character Sheep or Goat, the right is a hand holding a stick. The character means that a shepherd herds sheep with a whip or stick.

The bronze script of character Raise is

The left is modified character Sheep or Goat, the right is a hand holding whip or stick.

The big seal script of character Raise is

The top is modified character Sheep or Goat, the bottom is a food utensil. The character here means that to feed the sheep with food, such as grass which shows the lamb processing is changed from grazing on wild to feeding in farm.

The small seal script of character Raise is

The top is modified character Sheep or Goat, the bottom is the food utensil. 

The clerical script of character Raise is

The top is modified character Sheep or Goat, the bottom is character Good Person, which is a mistake. Because character Good Person looks like character Food 食，but the top 人 is belong to the character Sheep or Goat on the top, therefore, the bottom is not character 食，but 良.

The simplified song typeface is 

The top is same as its clerical script, the bottom is changed to one falling left stroke plus one vertical stroke, which means nothing, but reduced the number of strokes. The pictography of the character is totally lost.

The pinyin of the character is Yang3.

Amazing Chinese Characters (670) Latitude - 纬

 The big seal script of character Latitude is

The left is character Silk, the right is character Wei, meaning walking around a villege to protect it. The character Latitude means that the horizontal wire in the weaving.

The small seal script of character Latitude is

Similar to its big seal script.

The clerical script of character Latitude is

The left is Radical Silk, the right ti character Wei.

The pinyin of the character is Wei3.

The character means horizontal line, and latitude now.

Amazing Chinese Characters (669) Surround - 围

 The bronze script of character Surround is

The inside is character Wei - 韋, which means patrol and guard; Outside is a big circle, means city wall. The character means that patrol and guard the city. Actually, the character 韋 and  圍 have the same meaning, just 韋 is earlier when the city had no wall, 圍 is later when the city inside had wall surrounded. 

The big seal script of character Surround is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of character Surround is

Similar to older scripts.

The clerical script of character Surround is

Very similar to small seal script.

The simplified song typeface is

The inside 韦 has changed dramatically, it is from cursive script, lost the pictography completely.

The Pinyin of the character is Wei2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (668) Shan - 陕，Gorge - 峡

The big seal script of character Shan is

The left is cliff, the right is character Clip. There are many ravines in Yellow Plateau where Shan Xi Province is located. The character becomes the abbreviation of Shan Xi Province, but the original meaning of ravine is not known by most of people.

The big seal script of character Gorge is

The left is character Mountain, the right is character Clip. This character is for Gorge among mountain area, normally it is bigger than ravine, most of time there is a river between the two mountains. The ravine is between two hills, normally no river in between. 

The small seal script of character Shan is

Similar to its big seal script. 

There is no small seal script of character Gorge, which means the character was not popular, probably Gorges are less seen than Ravines.

The clerical script of character Shan is

The left is Radical Er (looks like er, but means cliff), the right is character Clip.

The clerical script of character Gorge is

The left is character Mountain, the right is character Clip.

The Pinyin of character Shan (陕）is Shan3, the pinyin of character Gorge is Xia2.

Right now, the meaning of ravine of character Shan (陕）is disappeared. Gorge is used for ravine most of time.

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (667) Coerce - 挟

 The big seal script of character Coerce is

The left is character Hand, the right is character Clip. A person is held by two people using their hands, forced to do something he doesn't want.

The small seal script of character Coerce is

Similar to its big seal script.

The clerical script of character Coerce is

The left is Radical Person, the right is character Clip.

The Pinyin of the character Clip is Xia2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (666) Knight - 侠

The big seal script of character Knight is

The left is character People, the right is character Clip. A person who holds two people with his arms, is Knight because he is strong and good at fight.

The small seal script of character Knight is

Similar to its big seal script.

The clerical script of character Knight is

The left is Radical People, and the right is character Clip.

The pinyin of character 侠 is Xia2.

 

Amazing Chinese Characters (665) Too - 也

The big seal script of character Too is

which is character Snake. The character became character Too. The reason is that there were not enough characters in ancient time, when people needed a character to express Too, Also, As Well, they used character Snake to mean those. 

The small seal script of character Too is

Some similarity to big seal script. 

The clerical script of character Too is

No similarity any more. We just can imagine that the middle vertical stroke + the left vertical stroke turning to bottom tail is the tongue alike part of the older scripts, the horizontal from left to right turn is the snake head like part. 

The pinyin of the character is Ye3. 

Amazing Chinese characters (664) Ancient Lapel - 衽

 The big seal script of character Ancient Lapel is

The left is character Cloth, the right is character The ninth Heavenly Stems, here means "the key area of cloth". Probably because you have to hold the area to take on or take off the cloth.

Generally speaking the Lapel is the black wide belt "y" from the neck down to right waist, restrictedly speaking, it is the bottom of black "y" (below the "v") is the meaning of the character. It was very popular in ancient China, people created a character to represent it. But there have been no this kind cloth for one thousand of years, so most of modern Chinese don't know what the character means.

The small seal script of character Ancient Lapel is

The left is character Cloth, the right is character The ninth Heavenly Stems.

The clerical script of character Ancient Lapel is

The left is Radical Cloth, the right is The ninth Heavenly Stems. 

The pinyin of the character is Ren4.

Amazing Chinese characters (663) Pregnancy - 妊

 The shell bone script of character Pregnancy is

The left is character Woman, the right is character Work. A lady who is loaded with heavy work - pregnancy. 

The bronze script of character Pregnancy is

The left is character Woman, the right is character The ninth Heavenly Stems, here it means mortise - tenon structure, a complicated structure.

The big seal script of character Pregnancy is 

Similar to bronze script.

The small script of character Pregnancy is

the left is character Woman, the right is character The ninth Heavenly Stems, mortise-tenon structure.

The clerical script of character Pregnancy is

The left is Radical Woman, the right is character The ninth Heavenly Stems.

The Pinyin of the character is Ren4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (662) Person in Charge - 任

 The shell bone script of character Person in Charge is

The left is character Person, the right is character Work, a mortise-tenon structure. A person holding the mortise-tenon structure is the one who is in charge because mortise-tenon structure is very complicated, only people who are very good at the structure design and engineering with experience can handle the task.

The bronze script of character Person in Charge is 

The left is charter Person, the right is character The ninth of Heavenly Stem, the middle dot is the indicator to show the point the person holding.

The big seal script of character Person in Charge is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of character Person in Charge is 

The left is character Person, the right is character The ninth of Heavenly Stem.

The clerical script of character Person in Charge is

The left is Radical Person, the right is character The ninth of Heavenly Stem.

The Pinyin of the character is Ren4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (661) The ninth of Heavenly Stems - 壬

 Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches together form a Chinese calendar circle. There are ten characters in Heavenly Stems, the ninth is the character we are discussing. There twelve characters in Earthly Branches. They pair up to form 60 pairs to count the years. It is difficult and unnecessary to go detail of this system, we just need to know, the character we discuss right now is one of Heavenly Stems.

The shell bone script of character of Then ninth of Heavenly Stems is

which is character Work (Post 465),  it is ancient mortise-tenon structure

The bronze script of character The ninth of Heavenly Stems is

Similar to shell bone script, except the dot in the middle of the vertical bar. The dot is an indicator, which indicates someone holds the mortise-tenon structure in the middle to assemble the structure. 

The big seal script of The ninth of Heavenly Stems is 

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of The ninth of Heavenly Stems is

Similar to older scripts, except the dot in the middle becomes a horizontal line. 

The clerical script of character The ninth of Heavenly Stems

Similar to small seal script except the top stroke becomes a little falling left stroke, which is to distinguish the character from character King - 王.

The Pinyin of the character is Ren2.

The original meaning of the character - working with mortise - tendon structure is disappeared. It is only used to be the ninth of Heavenly Stems. I don't know why.