Jue (pinyin: jué) is a first-class commonly used Chinese character. This word was first found in Shang Dynasty Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Shang Dynasty inscriptions, and its ancient shape is like a Jue: there is a stream in front of the Jue (the trough for pouring wine), followed by a pointed tail, and the cup is three feet below.
Jue is a vessel for holding wine. This wine vessel was given to the princes by the emperor when he enfeoffed them. Later, it extended to titles and official positions. In ancient times, "Jue" was homophonic with "sparrow", so "Jue" was also used as "sparrow" in ancient books.
Judging from the shape of the word "Jue" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, it is exactly like the shape of an ancient wine vessel with two or three "feet" underneath. In fact, "Jue" generally has three cup feet; In the middle is a container (belly) for holding wine or wine, and the small square is like a handle, also called a "pot";
The arrow symbol "↑" above indicates "column"; The opening on the left represents the "flow" of drinking in the mouth. The "Jue" in the bronze inscriptions of Shang Dynasty is more vivid, that is, the physical description of "Jue" is like a hand at the bottom right ("You"), which means holding the Jue to drink.
In the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Jue column was twisted into the shape of "Figure A", and the lower body was saved into two feet. The word "Jue" was not found in the ancient Chinese characters of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. In the Qin bamboo slips before and after the Qin Dynasty merged with the Six Kingdoms, the word "Jue" changed greatly. A short figure was added under the hand shape and changed to "inch". The whole piece was divided into two pieces, both of which lost the shape of Jue. The Qin bamboo slips on the lower left are inherited;
This led to the misinterpretation of Biography in Shuowen Jiezi. There are many forms in Qin bamboo slips, which may not only be the reason for the "F" shape of Xiao Zhuan in Shuowen, but also the source of Han Li's two writing styles. Glyphs are common in China, while the "Yi" glyph is not common, but the latter is introduced into regular script.
The word "Jue" in Shuowen may have originated from the early Han Dynasty, because it is actually a change form after intercepting the first half of a glyph in Qin bamboo slips; In the early Han Dynasty, the word "Jue" in Mawangdui silk script had the form of intercepting the second half of the word "Jue" in Qin or early Han Dynasty. . After several changes, the column shape has become a flat "claw" shape in regular script. Therefore, the old-style writing of regular script is "Jue" in modern standard font writing.