Amazing Chinese characters (771) Cloth - 布

 The bronze script of character Cloth is

The bottom is character Towel - 巾（Post 172），the top is character Father - 父（Post 166), which is a hand holding a stick or bar, meaning he works hard, and has power to punish family members. Here it means to hit the flax to make linen, the earliest cloth for Chinese.

The big seal script of character Cloth is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of character Cloth is

The bottom 巾（towel) is similar to bronze or big seal script. The top is hand holding the stick which is very short, and connected with hand which is difficult to separate it from the hand, lost the pictography.

The clerical script of character Cloth is

The bottom 巾 is still very similar to older scripts, but the top hand with stick changed dramatically, please use your imagination to figure out how it became the current form from the small seal script. 

The Pinyin of the character is Bu4. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (770) Give with Respect - 奉

The bronze script of character Give with Respect is

The top is character Harvest and Abundance - 丰, ears of wheat (Post 317), the bottom are two hands which hold the crop to give to some one who is a prestigious person, such as King,  or to God in Sacrifice.

The big seal script of character Give with Respect is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of character Give with Respect is

Similar to older scripts, except an extra hand in the bottom which shows the present is heavy, needs more people to lift.

The clerical script of character Give with Respect is

The top middle is character Harvest and Abundance, the falling-down left, and falling-down right strokes are two hands, the bottom is another hands. 

The Pinyin of the character is Feng4.

Amazing Chinese characters (769) Libation - 奠

The shell bone script of character Libation is

The top is character Liquor Jug (Post 104)

The bottom one line means the earth. The character means sacrificial wine for earth. 

The bronze script of character Libation is

The top is character Liquor Jug, and bottom is earth with wine drops.

The big seal script of character Libation is 

The top is character Eight - 八 (Post 156), means Separate, here is Open, open the jug mouth (= separate the mouth). The middle is character Liquor Jug. The bottom is two hands holding the jug.

The small seal script of character of Libation is

Similar to big seal script. 

The clerical script of character Libation is

Some similarity to small seal script.

The Pinyin of the character is Dian4.

Amazing Chinese characters (768) Rotation - 番

The bronze script of character Rotation is

The top is like character Rice - 米 (Post 163), but it is not the same. I think it is rice crop with rice before threshing. The bottom is character Field - 田 (Post 3). The character means that the rice crop is planted in paddy field to produce the rice year after year.  It is used to express how many times of a same thing people has done.

The big seal script of character Rotation is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of character Rotation is

Similar to big seal script, but the top stroke bent to right instead of left.

The clerical script of character Rotation is

The top stroke is all through from right to left now, the rest is similar to older scripts.

The Pinyin of the script is Fan1.

Amazing Chinese Characters（767）Full of Life - 苏

The bronze script of character Full of Life is 

The top are two grass, left bottom is character Fish (Post 2), the right bottom is character Wood (Post 10). The character means a place with a lot of grass, wood, and fish, a full of life world.

The big seal script of character Full of Life is

The left top, the middle, and the bottom together is character Fish, the top right is character Wood. Grass is not showing. But the meaning is same: full of live.

The small seal script of character Full of Life is

The top are two grass, the left is fish, the right is character Rice Crop (Post 34), changed from character Wood in bronze and big seal scripts, but the meaning is same. Why did change? Because the rice crop was more important than wood in 2200 ago than 3000 + years ago when people more relied on the fruits on trees.  

The clerical script of character Full of Life is

The top is Grass Radical, the left is character Fish, the right is character Rice Crop.

The simplified song typeface of the character is 

The top is Grass Radical, the bottom is character Manage (not discussed yet), nothing to do with Full of Live. No idea where it is from.

The Pinyin of the character is Su1. 

 

Amazing Chinese characters (766) Chapter - 章

The bronze script of character Chapter is

The top is character 辛 - Pungent （Post 733), the middle may be character 曰 - Say (Post 341), or just a drawing of big round board with some characters or symbols on. The character 辛 vertical line penetrated the character 曰. 辛 also means tongue which could speak and sing, here it means sing or singing. The tongue is singing according to the music score on the big board.

The big seal script of character Chapter is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of character Chapter is

The top is character 辛, the bottom is character 早 - Morning, which is not same as the bottom in bronze and big seal scripts. It is a mistake, changed the original meaning to unknown meaning. 

The clerical script of character Chapter is

The top is character 立 - Stand from character 辛 - Pungent; the bottom is character 早 - Morning. It has been changed from the top to bottom, lost 100% original meaning and pictography, just because people wanted to write couple strokes less. 

The Pinyin of the character is Zhang1.

Amazing Chinese characters (765) Cao (Family name) - 曹

 The shell bone script of character Cao is

The top are two characters East (Post 77), the bottom is character Mouth (Post 16). The character East could mean Host, Owner, etc. here it means party in the court, the two parties: Plaintiff, and Defendant. The Mouth means arguing between the two parties. Original meaning of the character is Court Argument.

The bronze script of character Cao is

The top are two characters East, the bottom is character Say (341), argument on the court.

The big seal script of character Cao is

Two Easts on the top, and Say in the bottom.

The small seal script of character Cao is

Easts and Say.

The clerical script of character Cao is

The top two small curves are pulled to one straight line, the middle two 日 are merged together, the bottom closed the open to form characer 曰（Say).

The Pinyin of the character is Cao2.

The character is only used as family name, the court-argument meaning is disappeared.

The reason why it is used just for family name may be that it was used as a famous person 曹操 who was the king of state during Three Kingdoms (A.D. 220 - 280). Normally, if a character was used for a famous King or Emperor, the character would be used only for family name, all other meanings won't be used anymore.  

Amazing Chinese Characters (764) Fraud - 诈

 The bronze script of character Fraud is

The left is character Say (Post 157), the right is character Sudden - 乍（Post 763). The character looks deformed, which was caused by the low casting technology at that time - 3000+ years ago.

Overstate, and boast something to make people believe, then taking advantage of people's gullibility. 

The big seal script of character Fraud is

Say is in left, and Sudden on the right.

The small seal script of character Fraud is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Fraud is

The left is radical Say, and the right is character Sudden.

The simplified song typeface is

The character Say is simplified.

The Pinyin of the character is Zha4, same as the character 乍.

Amazing Chinese characters (763) Remain - 余

 The shell bone script of character Remain is

A simple thatched pavilion, which is the original meaning of the character. In 3500+ years ago, people living conditions was very bad, most people lived in this kind of pavilion, so people may call themselves as man who lives in the thatched pavilion.

The bronze script of character Remain is

Two long dots are side support pillars to make the pavilion more stable.

The small seal script of character Remain is

The left is character Eat, here means Food. The right is character Remain. The clerical script clarified the late meaning of the character: Extra foods are stored in thatched hut. 

The simplified song typeface of character Remain is

Back to the original, no radical Food.

The Pinyin of the character is Yu2.

The Evolution of Chinese Character Expression Forms and the “Outline Method” for Teaching Chinese

 By Lewei Shang

August 10, 2025

Part 1, The evolution of Chinese character expression forms

Many years ago, during a lecture on the pictographic origins of Chinese characters, an elderly white gentleman asked me: “Do Chinese characters have letters?”
I had never imagined anyone would ask such a question, to the point that I started doubting whether I’d understood him correctly. I asked again, and confirmed that he really was asking, “Do Chinese characters have letters?”
My first reaction was, “How could anyone ask such an unrealistic question?” Then I honestly told him: “Chinese characters don’t have letters.”

But that question forced me to think: Why don’t Chinese characters have letters? Do Chinese characters have something similar to letters?

What is a letter? A letter is the smallest unit in an alphabetic writing system, used to form words. Chinese is not an alphabetic writing system, so naturally it has no letters. But does it have a smallest independent unit — a structure that, like letters, cannot be divided further?
After some thought, I concluded that Chinese does have such units: independent characters that cannot be split. For example: 日 (sun), 月 (moon), 火 (fire), 土 (earth), 人 (person), 水 (water), 牛 (ox), 马 (horse), 山 (mountain), 女(woman), 口 (mouth), 门 (door), 目 (eye), 田 (field), 心 (heart), 木 (tree), and so on.

The difference between these “independent characters” and letters is that independent characters have meaning, while letters do not. But functionally, in terms of forming larger linguistic units, they are similar.
Another difference: alphabets usually have only 20–30 letters, while Chinese has about 400 independent characters — more than ten times as many. These 400+ are combined to form tens of thousands (or even over a hundred thousand) compound characters.
For example: 明 (bright), 看 (look), 灶 (stove), 妈 (mother), 吐 (spit), 炎 (flame), 休 (rest), 森 (forest), 林 (woods), 泪(tear), 思 (think), 相 (mutual). These are formed from two or more independent characters.

The emergence of compound characters allowed Chinese writing to expand from representing only tangible objects to expressing abstract concepts. For example: 明, 看, 休, 好, 思 are verbs or adjectives with no concrete shape. This greatly enhanced the expressive power of Chinese.

But even then, Chinese characters were still not enough — there were numbers, pronouns, and new concepts constantly emerging. What to do? Our ancestors invented loan characters (假借) and mutual explanation (转注).

• Loan characters: If there’s no existing character to express a meaning, borrow one temporarily. For example, 它originally meant “snake.” But since “it” (pronoun) had no character, 它 was borrowed for the pronoun. Over time, the pronoun meaning became far more common than the original “snake” meaning. People forgot 它 meant “snake,” so a new character 蛇 (with the “insect” radical) was created to restore the original meaning. Because the original character wasn’t returned, this is called loan borrowing.
• Mutual explanation: One character acquires multiple related meanings. For example, 乐 (lè, yuè), 重 (zhòng, chóng), 省 (shěng, xǐng), 行 (háng, xíng), 恶 (è, wù), 觉 (jiào, jué), etc. For instance, 乐 meaning “happy” (lè) didn’t have its own character, so the 乐 meaning “music” (yuè) was also used for “happy.” Unlike loan borrowing, no new character is created — it’s more convenient but leads to common misinterpretations, because one character can have several meanings, and learners may not master them all at once.

Some may ask: “How do you know which came first, yuè or lè?” I can say with certainty: yuè came first — you can see it from shell bone inscription.

For example, this is a set of bronze chime bells: bells on top, frame below. Chime bells are, of course, for playing music, so 乐 originally meant a musical instrument.
In many cases, we can’t be sure which meaning came first. But regardless, the result is the same: one character with multiple meanings. In fact, 99% of such polysemy comes from mutual explanation.

Even so, there still weren’t enough characters. Creating new ones is difficult and slow. What to do? Our ancestors invented word compounds — two or more characters combined to express a meaning. For example, “电脑” (computer) is formed from 电 (electricity) and 脑 (brain), instead of creating a brand-new character for “computer.”

This method works for endless terms: 计算机 (computer), 打印机 (printer), 割草机 (lawn mower), 拖拉机 (tractor), 推土机 (bulldozer), 洗碗机 (dishwasher), 订书机 (stapler). Whatever the machine, I can make a compound to name it. Same with vehicles: 马车 (horse carriage), 牛车 (ox cart), 汽车 (car), 火车 (train), 面包车 (van), 轿车 (sedan), 卡车(truck), 云霄飞车 (roller coaster), 班车 (shuttle bus), 板车 (flatbed cart), 自行车 (bicycle), 三轮车 (tricycle).

This also works with diseases: 胃病 (stomach illness), 肺病 (lung illness), 心脏病 (heart disease), 糖尿病 (diabetes). Making new compounds is far easier than inventing a new character for each disease.

The invention of compounds freed Chinese from the constant pressure to create new characters. Compound words also express meaning more precisely and subtly, and reduce confusion from homophones. For example, the single character 地sounds similar to 弟, 第, 帝, 蒂, 迪, 递, etc., which can cause misunderstandings. But in the compound 土地 (“land”), the meaning is clear, and full-homophone compounds are rarer than single-character homophones.

Our ancestors also invented reduplication: 清清楚楚 (very clear), 干干净净 (very clean), 漂漂亮亮 (very beautiful), 马马虎虎 (careless), 上上下下 (up and down). This largely solved homophone confusion.

Part 2, Outline Method for teaching Chinese

Inspired by the above thinking, I recently developed a new approach to teaching Chinese: learning should start with independent characters. There are about 400 — not too many, and you don’t need them all. They are highly pictographic, so introducing their shapes and evolution makes them easy to learn without rote memorization.

For example, the independent characters 日, 月, 水, 火, 土, 山, 女, 口, 牛, 马, 门, 目, 木, 人. 日 is a circle with a dot in the center. 山 is three peaks. 口 is a square.

Once you’ve learned them, move on to compound characters — they’re just combinations of the independent ones, easy to understand and remember, like building with blocks: 日 + 月 = 明 (bright), 门 + 口 = 问 (ask), 女 + 马 = 妈 (mother), 火 + 土 = 灶 (stove), 水 + 目 = 泪 (tear).

Finally, learn compounds: also like building blocks. 泪水 (tears), 土灶 (earthen stove), 好马 (good horse), 妈妈 (mother), 儿子 (son), 好人 (good person), 门口 (doorway), 明月 (bright moon).

I call this the “Outline Method” for Teaching Chinese Characters:

• Independent characters are the outline (纲)
• Compound characters are the main headings (目)
• Compound words are the subheadings (次目)

Grasp the outline (independent characters), and you lift up the main headings (compound characters). Lift those, and the subheadings (words) follow.

Example with 日: 

shell bone script

• 日 is the outline (independent character)
• Compound characters from 日: 早, 明, 星, 春, 时
• Words from these:
• 早 → 早晨, 早饭, 早操, 早退, 早自习
• 明 → 明天, 光明, 明显, 明月, 发明, 聪明
• 星 → 星光, 星火, 星辰, 零星, 卫星, 明星
• 春 → 春天, 春节, 春季, 春风, 春雨, 春联
• 时 → 时间, 时代, 时差, 时钟, 临时, 倒计时

So the evolution of Chinese character expression can be summarized as:

Independent characters → Compound characters → Compound words

This makes learning easier, faster, and more memorable. Combined with basic Chinese grammar, it forms a rich and complete language.