Thursday 18 February 2016

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 本

Today we started with a new series related to 木. Looking at 本, the new character we will learn today, it is composed with 木 and an indicator . We know 木 originally means tree. with the indicator  drawn upon the root part of the tree, is to denote the meaning of root of a tree. and 本 is eventually extended naturally to mean root or base or origin or source as well.

Let us confirm our observation with its evolution history: (image get from http://www.vividict.com)
Learn one Chinese Character a day - 本
From its Bronze Script , it is quite obvious that Chinese ancestors added 3 indicators to root parts of the , During Seal Script (籀文https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shizhoupian) period, was to add extra drawings of roots under to emphasize the meaning of root of a tree. Starting from Clerical Script,  本 is pretty much finalized with the same writing for the following two thousand years.

Now let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 本 inside:


而待也。臣本布衣,躬耕南阳

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