Learn one Chinese Character a day - 之

While looking at our current way of writing 之, we would not have any idea what it means. We have to get the help from its Oracle Script or other ancient scripts to understnd it correctly.

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

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 之

Now it is clear that its Oracle Script is composed of  (止 - foot) with a horizontal line (- under foot, it refers to earth). With these information, then we can start to guess its meaning.  which is 之, orignally means the place where the foot stands. Eventually 之 is used as Pronoun: him or her for any person, or it for anything. And 之 is also used as Modal Particle (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_particle), which does not have really any meaning except helping to pronounce a sentence more smoothly.

Let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 之 inside to end our lesson today:

之乎者也