Tuesday, July 1, 2025

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.

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.
 



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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 ...