The original meaning of a word

Zi (pinyin: zi) is a first-class Chinese character (commonly used). This word first appeared in the bronze inscriptions of Shang Dynasty, and its ancient glyph is like giving birth to a child in a house. The original meaning of "word" refers to having children, which is extended to raising and also to women's engagement. In ancient times, pictographic characters were called "Wen", and the words bred on the basis of pictographic characters were called "Zi". Later collectively referred to as words, and extended to things written in words, such as fonts, calligraphy works, letters, notes and so on. "Zi" also refers to people's aliases, which is generally related to the meaning of the words used in names.

Understanding and pictophonetic characters. The word "Zi" did not exist in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, but it did exist in Shang Dynasty. The inscriptions on bronze in Shang Dynasty (figure 1) and the inscriptions on bronze in Western Zhou Dynasty (figure 2) are the next words of Bao Mi. The "Zi" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is like a baby; Mi, Oracle Bone Inscriptions is like a house. The structure of "Zi" is to simulate the appearance of a child born in a house, from which the seal script (Figure 3) comes. Although the strokes of official script and regular script have changed, the basic structure is still the same. Zi is represented by the combination of Zi and Mi, while Zi and Zi are similar in phonetics and also have phonetic meanings.