Sunday 22 September 2019

Our character today looks very simple: 不, which thus provides much little information for us to guess its meaning. From my memory, the closest drawing among Chinese characters is 木. So is 不 created somehow from 木 (details of 木 goes here: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2015/12/learn-one-chinese-character-day.html)? Let us explore.

Bronze script of 不 is  while Bronze script of 木 is . Comparing the two, 不 looks like the part of a 木 (a tree) above earth has been removed. A tree chopped down contains the meaning of the tree is gone and not exists any longer.
what 不 is

Chinese ancestors used 不 to represent the meaning of nothingness, or not, or blank. For example: 不要.

That is all for 不, before enjoying our Chinese calligraphy, let us examine its evolution history first: (image taken from http://vividict.com)
Evolution history of 不

Now the calligraphy with 不 inside:
不忘初心,方得始终。


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