朋 | 倗

We have successfully interpreted the meaning of the sentence: "学而时习之，不亦悦乎？" its next sentence is "有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？" In our following learning journey, we will prepare ourselves to understand it properly.

Our character today is 朋. What does it mean by grouping two 月 together? We have learnt that 月 can represent either moon or meat when it is used as Chinese radical. You can review the related posts as below:

1. 月: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2012/02/learn-one-chinese-character-day_17.html

2. 肉: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2015/12/learn-one-chinese-character-day_28.html

3. 背: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2015/12/learn-one-chinese-character-day_31.html

So does 朋 means a lot of meat or kind of meaning "bright" like 明? After we see its Oracle scripts, it will be clear that 朋 has nothing related to 月 or 肉, as shown below:

evolution history of 朋

We can see from its Oracle script  of 朋 that it looks actually like a bunch of something stringed together. In one of Chinese classic literature《诗经》, there is a sentence called: “既见君子,锡我百朋”, which is translated into modern Chinese as: After visiting the officer, he rewarded me one hundred of 朋. It is a clear proof that 朋 is something related to currency. In ancient China, Chinese people started their currency with beautiful 贝. Details related to 贝 can be found here: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2016/05/learn-one-chinese-character-day_9.html

With above understanding, below image is a good representation what 朋 actually is:

Now we reach to the conclusion that 朋 is the drawing of two group of 贝 stringed together.

From the concept of "group" coming from the original representation of 朋, 朋 thus is used to mean grouping of people, for example 朋党.

And looking at the , it does not mean group of people only, it means a group of people who share the same value and standard, like your friends. for example 朋友.

Again from , it is a drawing of two strings of 贝, tied in sequence, parallel to each other, hang from top down. It is further evolved to mean students (which is a group of people) study under a same teacher, and of course, they share the same values and standards. That is why ancient Chinese says "同处师门曰朋".

From the series related to Oracle script, we can easily tell why 倗 is a variant of 朋.

That is all for 朋, let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 朋 inside:

有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？