Thursday 29 September 2016

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 寸

What is the meaning of our character today - 寸? Very hard to guess with its current form. Let us see whether we can find some clue from its ancient scripts: (image taken from http://chinese-linguipedia.org/)
Learn one Chinese Character a day - 寸

As we can see that its Bronze Script or Seal Script is to draw an indicator dash to a hand . What does that mean? When a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor is seeing her patients, she would check their pulses at their wrist, as shown below. 
Diagnose by checking pulses 

That position of the wrist where we can feel the pulses is represented as . The distance between this position to palm, which is 寸, is eventually used as a measurement unit. 1 寸 is around 3.33 cm.

As you can see that 3.33cm is a quite short length, 寸 is so used to mean short. If we are talking about size, 寸 is to mean small,

That is all for 寸, we can now enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 寸 inside:
谁言寸草心,报得三春晖

And we have prepared enough information to reason following Chinese character by looking at its Oracle Script: and Seal Script . We will reveal the answer in our next lesson. Please take your time to think about it.


Sunday 25 September 2016

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 杳

Opposite to 杲, the character we will examine today is 杳: the Sun (日) falls under the tree (木), which is to represent following scene:
Sunsets under a tree - 杳

Now it is obvious to guess its meaning. 杳 should be related to dim, darkness and etc at sunsets.

杳 means Dim, or Dark.

And 杳 is eventually extended to mean Disappear.

As usual we will examine its evolution history to understand it better: (Image taken from http://vividict.com)
Learn one Chinese Character a day - 杳
Basically there is not many changes along the time, from its Bronze Script  till current 杳.

And let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 杳 inside:
岩岫杳冥

Wednesday 21 September 2016

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 杲

We have mentioned 杲 in our last lesson. Have you tried to guess its meaning? Today we will reveal the answer.

As usual, we decompose the character 杲 to 日 (the Sun) on top of 木 (remember the original meaning of 木 in Oracle Script as tree). We have the aggregated meaning as : the Sun raised to be above the tree. What does that mean? Bright!

That is all. As usual we examine its evolution history to confirm our observation: (image taken from http://chinese-linguipedia.org)

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 杲
It is quite clear from above evolution history that current 杲 is pretty much the same as its ancient scripts.

Now let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 杲 inside:
仲偃仰天, 杲卿骂贼

Thursday 15 September 2016

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 暮

The new Chinese character created to mean evening is 暮, which is composed of 莫 and 日.

First 莫's original meaning is evening already. By adding 日 it makes 暮 different than 莫.

Second 莫 was borrowed to mean Not, 暮 is then to mean "there is not Sun to be seen"! So 暮 does mean evening.

Let us check 暮's ancient scripts to confirm our observation: (image taken from http://vividict.com/)
Learn one Chinese Character a day - 暮
 It is obvious that Oracle Script and Bronze Script of 暮 is same as those of 莫. Starting from Seal Script period, Chinese ancestors dedicated 莫 to mean Not, Nothing, Nobody or None, and added 日 to 莫 to create  to mean evening.


After finishing our learning, let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 暮 inside, as usual:
晨敲迷途-暮击黄粱

In our next a few lessons, we are going to learn 杲 and 杳, guess their meaning?

Saturday 10 September 2016

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 莫

As mentioned in our last lesson, today we are going to examine the character with its Oracle Script as . What is the meaning you have tried to figure out?

We have gotten to  know that  is grasses while  is the Sun. Looks like  draws the scene that Sun is in the grasses, which is shown below:
So  means "the Sun raises just above the grasses" or "the Sun sets into grasses"? With what we have learnt, there are characters for mornings as 旦 and 早.  here should be "the Sun sets into grasses", which is evening.

Let me check how  is eventually evolved into current way of writing - 莫. (image taken from http://vividict.com/)
Learn one Chinese Character a day - 莫
We can see that at period of Clerical Script , lower  of was simplified to . and we finally get 莫.

Since sunsets means the Sun is gone and cannot be seen any more, 莫 was eventually borrowed to mean Not or Nothing or Nobody. After that Chinese ancestors then created a new one to represent evening on top of 莫.  If it was you, how would you create the new character?

Before we reveal the answer in our next lesson, let us enjoy today a Chinese calligraphy with 莫 inside:
为学莫重于尊师

Monday 5 September 2016

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 药 | 藥

After we have learnt 草, we now know that 艹 means grass. Then what is the meaning of our new character today - 药, whose Traditional version is 藥?

From Simplified version 药, there is no clue for us to know its exact meaning, except that 药 is something related to grass. Its Traditional version 藥, however, does provide us the necessary information to reason its meaning.

What is the 藥 composed of? Grass (艹) and Happy (樂, or its Simplified version - 乐). So 藥 is some grass to make (people) to feel better / happy. Isn't that clear now 藥 means Herbs?

Since 樂, or its Simplified version - 乐 also refers to Musics, I do feel that there is another layer of meaning Chinese ancestors would like to represent with 藥 as well: beautiful musics which make people feeling happy can actually be used to cure illness like herbs!

药 | 藥 is eventually extended to mean any medicine or drugs.

And in ancient China, warlocks tried to create certain medicine that can help to make people immortal. Emperor Qin Shihuang was a big fan of it. Details please find at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_alchemy. Those warlocks accidentally invented Gunpowder out it. So 药 | 藥 also refers to Gunpowder or any explosive chemicals.
Emperor Qin Shihuang and Chinese Alchemy
And when 药 | 藥 is used as Verb, it can mean to cure patient.
We now know the meaning of 药 | 藥. Let us examine its ancient scripts to confirm our observation: (image taken from http://chinese-linguipedia.org)
Learn one Chinese Character a day - 药 | 藥
It is clear that its Bronze Script was created with  and , which is exactly the same way as current 藥.

Now it is time to enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 药 | 藥 inside:
术精岐黄, 妙药长生
Next we will start to learn a new Chinese character with its Oracle Script as , can you try to guess its meaning?


Thursday 1 September 2016

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 草

Our new Chinese character today 草 is obviously composed of 艹 and 早. What is its meaning here? We have known that 艹means grass, while 早 means morning. What is the aggregated meaning of 草? It is quite clueless. Let us check its evolution history to see whether we can have more ideas from its ancient scripts: (image taken from http://chinese-linguipedia.org)
Learn one Chinese Character a day - 草
Oracle Script of 草 is unknown, Its Bronze Script and Seal Script can give us some help to understand its meaning. For , below image is better than a thousand words.

a vivid view of 草
is the drawing of "sun shines upon grass in the early morning", Looking at its Seal Script ,recall that means seeds is just sprouting. So or also hints

that the grass land is thriving as well. Current form 草 is the continuation of .

Now it is time to reveal the answer: 草 means grass.
And from its original meaning, 草 can mean grass land or wild places.
And grass normally grows in a disorganised way, so 草 is extended to mean disorganised, messy, draft, unofficial and etc,

Since 草 is composed of 艹 and 早. then it is not a surprise that 草 (pronounces cǎo) which is quite close to 早 (pronounces zǎo). Besides the meaning we explained above, 早 also serves as the phonetic part of 草.

That is all, now it is time to enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 草 inside to end our lesson today:
山抹微云,天连衰草