Che is a pictographic character
1. Explanation of Che
Che (Pinyin: chē, jū) is a first-level standard Chinese character (commonly used character). This character first appeared in oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty. Its ancient characters resemble ancient cars. Most of the oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions have carriages, shafts and wheels. The original meaning of "car" is the vehicle as a means of transportation; ancient cars were not only a means of transportation, but also used to lead troops in battles.
Later "car" generally refers to wheeled transportation on land, and by extension to all tools that use wheel axles to rotate. "Lathe" is also used as a verb, which refers to cutting with a lathe. "Car" is used in dialects and means to turn the body. The word "rook" in chess is pronounced jū.
"Che" is one of the radicals of Chinese characters, serial number 68. Most of the characters with "car" as the meaning are related to cars, which can be roughly divided into four categories: first, the type of car, such as: chariot and carriage; second, the parts of the car, such as: wheels, shafts, and axles; third, the car The purpose of the car, such as: transfer, load, transport; the fourth is other things related to the car, such as: track, track, stop.
2. Etymological evolution
Pictographs. Cars, both ancient and modern, are important means of transportation. Ancient carriages of the Shang and Zhou dynasties are generally two-wheeled, with a rectangular or square carriage (chariot) and a single shaft, with the rear end of the shaft pressing on the axle under the carriage. There is a crossbar in front of the shaft, called a "weight", and a herringbone yoke on both sides, which is a tool for tying horses. The number of horses is usually two, and some are as many as six.
The ancient characters for “Che” and these ancient “cars” can corroborate each other. The oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, the bronze inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, and the bronze inscriptions of the early Western Zhou Dynasty are all relatively realistic images of ancient cars. The difference between the word "car" in Oracle bone inscriptions and that in bronze inscriptions is that the carriage is often on one side of the shaft, higher than the wheels, and is closer to the shape of a car than in bronze inscriptions.
Due to the knife carving, some wheels are not so round, and even become rectangular or oval. But this does not prevent it from being "like" a wheel. Moreover, the oracle bone inscriptions have mostly horizontal characters and very few vertical characters. In Shang Dynasty bronze inscriptions, the entire shape of the car is drawn, and the glyph is a top view
The modern universal car character is the result of further simplification of "car", with only four strokes in total, and the original Compared with those complicated two-wheeled "cars", there is a world of difference between difficulty and ease. This "car" comes from cursive script. Calligraphers since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, such as Wang Xianzhi, Huaisu, Yan Zhenqing, Yu Shinan, Su Shi, Xian Yushu, Zhu Zhishan, etc., have written cursive scripts that use the character "Che" as a standalone or as a radical "Che". of.