Monday 24 September 2018

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 牧

After learning both important and common livestock 牛 and 羊, we now start to examine a few Chinese characters created with them.
Our character today is one of that - 牧. What does it mean? It is composed of two parts : 牛 and 攵, of which we know that 牛 means Buffalo, while what does it mean by 攵?

As usual, we can get the help from  its ancient scripts shown below: (image taken from: http://vividict.com)
Evolution history of 牧

It Oracle Script  is a drawing of a hand  holding some stick or whip  to (control) the buffalo , like below paint:
牧牛图
So 攵 actually represents "a hand holding a stick or whip". Sound familiar? recall what we learnt on http://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2016/11/learn-one-chinese-character-day_28.html regarding 殳.
Its Bronze Script followed the Oracle version but swapped 牛 and 攵. The Seal Script  continued with Bronze Script.

So 牧 has the meaning of cowherd, and is eventually used to mean pasture or shepherd any herd, or even manage or govern people. In ancient China, some officer titles were named with 牧, like 徐州牧, which means this is an officer who governs the state called 徐州.

That is all for 牧, let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 牧 inside:
牧石人

No comments:

Post a Comment