Learn one Chinese Character a day - 燕

Our character today 燕 is another pictograph Chinese character related to bird. Its Oracle script is  and one of its Seal script is . Could you guess which kind of bird it is?

It is a bird which can be commonly seen in China and lives closely together with people. Looking at its tail, Chinese ancestors did emphasise its special characteristics comparing to other birds: the bird with a forked tail!

Now you should tell which bird it is - swallow, as shown in below Chinese painting:

燕子

Let us examine its evolution history to see how it changes along the time. (Image taken from: http://vividict.com/)

evolution history of 燕

We can see that it was simplified a lot during Clerical script era: , which is quite close to what we write today. If we look closely again at its modern form - 燕, it is still kind of preserving some sort of the characteristics of a bird.

Now let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 燕 inside:

无可奈何花落去，似曾相识燕归来。

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 鸣 | 鳴

Our character today is also related to 鸟, with an extra 口 added to create the combination: 鸣, whose Traditional version is 鳴.

What does 鸣 | 鳴 mean? We know that 鸟 is already the complete drawing of a bird. So 口 added should be used to emphasise the beak of 鸟. What the beak of a bird can do? Two major functions: "eat food" and "make sounds". Which one do you think it should be?

From we human being point of view, creating a dedicated character to represent the idea of a bird eating food does not make much sense, for that is not something special to a bird.

However many birds can sing melodiously which amuses people. That is something specially related to bird. Then it makes sense for Chinese ancestors to create 鸣 to represent such a special characteristic of 鸟 only. Let us listen to nice 鸣 of a certain bird below:

Yes, 鸣 means singing of a bird. for example : 鸟鸣

And it is eventually used to represent any nice, crisp and loud sounds like singing of bird. for example: 蛙鸣, 警钟长鸣.

Since birds sing to communicate with each other, 鸣 is then also used to mean "express someone's idea, thoughts or complains loudly", for example 百家争鸣, 鸣冤.

Now we know the meaning of 鸣 | 鳴. It is still worthy of going through its evolution history (image take from: http://vividict.com) as shown below:

evolution history of 鸣 | 鳴

That is all, let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 鸣 | 鳴 inside:

鸾凤和鸣

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 乌 | 烏

Today our character 乌 looks very similar to what we just learnt 鸟.  And its Traditional version 烏 to that of 鸟 - 鳥. Check carefully their differences.

Because of their similarity, 乌 must be something related to bird. to refresh your memory of 鸟, please go to https://xiongzou.blogspot.sg/2017/12/learn-one-chinese-character-day_18.html to review its ancient scripts.

the 、which is missing in 乌, comparing to 鸟, refers to the eyes of a bird. So what does 乌 mean here? There are two possibilities:

a. the bird without eyes;
b. certain bird, whose eye is kind of invisible.

If you still remember what we learnt of character 西 (https://xiongzou.blogspot.sg/2015/12/learn-one-chinese-character-day_15.html), you know the existence of a black bird called 金乌, which Chinese ancestors believed to carry Sun around the world in sky.

金乌

Yes 乌 is created specifically to represent such a black bird, with its black eyes not visible, as shown below. It is amazing that the Chinese ancestors so intelligent and creative in inventing all kinds of Chinese characters, isn‘t it?

乌鸦 - crow

From the creation of character 乌, it does demonstrate a very important philosophy of Chinese that "Less is more"!

Here is the evolution history of 乌 | 烏: （image taken from: http://vividict.com）

evolution history of 乌 | 烏

Oracle script of 乌 is missing. While its Bronze script is just drawing of another type of bird. Starting from Seal scripts of 乌 (which is ) and that of 鸟 (which is ) , we can see clearly the idea of "not drawing the eyes of 乌".

So 乌 is specifically created to mean crow. For example: 乌鸦

As time passes, 乌 is also used to mean colour black as well. For example: 乌云

And since 乌, comparing to 鸟, has no eyes, 乌 carries the meaning of no / not as well. For example 子虚乌有

that is all for 乌 | 烏, let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy to end our lesson today:

乌斋