Amazing Chinese Characters (763) Sudden - 乍

The shell bone script of character Sudden is

the top is axe blade, the bottom is firewood or a trunk. The swinging axe blade spliting a firewood or a trunk makes sudden and big sound, which is the meaning of the character.

The bronze script of character Sudden is

It is possible from the reverse of shell bone script

The angles are different and the right vertical (close vertical) line extends to touch the next diagonal line just below. Why? I don't know.

The big seal script of character Sudden is

similar to the bronze script. 

The small seal script of character Sudden is

Similar to big seal and bronze scripts except the right top, the reason why it changed like that? I don't know.

The clerical script of character Sudden is

Not much similarity to old scripts. However, we could get some hints: the top is from the top right 人 in small script, the bottom is a little bit similar to the left and bottom of small seal script.

The Pinyin of the character is Zha4.

Pictographic Interpretation of Chinese Characters 止，步，涉

Amazing Chinese Characters (762) Village - 屯

The shell bone script of character Village is

The top bulge is filling of grain, which has two meanings: grains, and growing, which all happen in farm field of remote village. 

The bronze script of character village is

The bulge in shell bone script becomes a dot, the rest is the grain. The dot is also called an indicative point, which shows where the meaning of the character is. In this case, the main meaning of the character is the filling of the seed, nothing else. 

The big seal script of character Village is

Similar to big seal script.

The small seal script of character Village is

The top horizontal line is the dot in bronze and big seal scripts because there is no dot in small script, all dots are replaced short lines. The rest is the grain. 

The clerical script of character Village is

Some similarity to small script and big script.

The Pinyin of character 屯 is Tun2.

The original meaning of "filling" is disappeared, but changed to Village where the filling happens. It also means Station (Army), Store up (Grain).

Amazing Chinese Characters (761) Larva - 孓

The big seal script of character Larva is

similar to big seal script of character Child

The difference is that the character Child has two arms not upward, but Larva has only one arm up, another downward. What does it mean? I guess it means that the arm downward implies the child is weak like Larva. So its original meaning is small and weak.

The small seal script of character Larva is

which is similar to character Alone

just missing an arm on the different side, here it means Alone too, which is different from Small and Weak, or Larva. I guess is that the character evolved, the meaning of Larva gradually lost, but not completely, the new meaning of Alone was added on, especially when people used the two characters 孑孓 together， which emphasizes the Along, or Lonely. 

The clerical script of character Larva is

the middle line is different direction from that in character Alone (孑）

The Pinyin of the character is Jue2.

The character is used rarely alone. occasionally used with 孑：孑孓, meaning is Lonely.

Amazing Chinese Characters (760) Alone - 孑

The big seal script of character Alone is

A little child with only one arm. 

Let's us compare the big seal script of character Child (Post 21)

A child with both arms.

Which arm is missing? Depends on what you think the position of the child, if the child is facing us, he is missing right arm; if he is back to us, he is missing left arm. By 《說文解字》(the most famous dictionary in Chinese history, it is missing left arm, therefore, the child is back to us. 

Normal people have two arms, single arm implies not paired, no partner, alone.

The small seal script of character Alone is

Right arm is missing? Which conflicts with the big seal script. Therefore, even 《說文解字》might make mistakes. What I think is that it just shows one arm missing, which arm missing doesn't matter.

The clerical script of character Alone is

The middle is slightly slanted line, left lower-right higher . 

In comparison, the clerical script of character Child is

Middle is horizontal line.

The Pinyin for the character is Jie2.

I want to point out that character 孑 is not a popular character, used rarely. 孤单 is used often for Alone. 

Amazing Chinese Character（759）Lift - 举（舉）

The big seal script of character Lift is 

The top and middle part are same as that of character Give - 与（Post 758), meaning two hands lift elephant Tooth, and put it down. The bottom is character Hand, which emphasizes how heavy the elephant tooth is, needs extra hand (extra person) to help.

The small script of character Lift is 

The top and middl parts are similar to the top of character Give, the bottom is character Hand.

The clerical script of character Lift is

The top (not including the middle) part is similar to the top part of old scripts, which means that two hands put down the elephant tooth. The two hands lifting the elephant tooth become one long horizontal line, one falling-left line, and one falling-right line, which are from the two hands in small script of Lift. The hand in the bottom becomes two horizontal lines, which are from the two concave arcs, and one vertical line.

The pictography of the character is lost more than half.

The song typeface of character Lift is

 
 

The top part becomes three dots, the rest are similar to clerical script. The pictography of the character is completely lost.

The Pinyin of the character is Ju3.

Amazing Chinese characters (758) Give - 与（與）

The bronze script of character Give is 

Before I discuss this character, I would like to show another similar character, character Flourish - 兴（興, Post 350）. The shell bone script of charact4er Flourish is 

The outside are four hands, which are similar to the outside of character Give above. The two hands on the bottom are fingers up, which means lift something over head. The two hands on the top are fingers down, which means put down something. They are one person's hands, the character is an image of lifting a brick mud (口）and hit it into the brick mould (similar to 井） to make adobe.

What is inside?

Let's see another character, character Tooth - 牙 (Post 523).

The bronze script of character Tooth is

Therefore the inside of character Give is Tooth. Which tooth? The elephant Tooth here. First it is very valuable, and heavy, so you need people to lift with hands, and give to the person who is honored. 

The small seal script of character Give is 

Similar to bronze script except the top inside, which is modified of the character Tooth.

The clerical script of character Give is

The top is similar to the top of small seal script. The bottom is the modified two hands: the horizontal long line is from the two curve of the two hands in small script, the two dots are the arms.

The simplified song typeface of character Give is

which is the top middle, meaning is tooth. But the simplification lost the original pictography and the meaning too.

The Pinyin of the character is Yu3.

The character right now has many other meanings: and, with, etc.