Learn one word every day, Chinese characters, broad and profound, hello everyone. I am joy. The Chinese character we are going to learn today is "zi"
1. Character tracing: Let's first look at the meaning and detailed explanation of "zi" on Baidu Encyclopedia.
Zi, a first-level Chinese character [1], pronounced as zì, was first seen in writing in the Shang Dynasty. The original meaning of "zi" is woman's conception. "Shan Hai Jing·Zhongshan Jing·Zhongci Qi Jing": "There is a tree on it, called Huang Jian, with yellow flowers and leaves. It is actually like orchid, and there is no word for it." "Yi Tun": "Haozhen" , not the word. "Yu Huan notes: "The word , pregnancy is also extended to female animals. Fertility by female animals is also extended to hatching. "Zi" is extended from the meaning of procreation to nurturing. Extended from nurturing to love. From love to education and governance. It was extended from education and governance to marriage. Later, "character" was extended to things written in words, such as fonts, calligraphy works, letters, notes, etc. [2]
2. Etymological evolution
Zi is both the phonetic and form participle, indicating children, that is, offspring. The word, in bronze = (宀, the omission of "an", a man builds a house and gets married) + (子, offspring, heirs), which means that a woman will give birth to offspring after she gets married. The original meaning of the word coined is: verb, a woman settles down in her husband's family and gives birth to offspring. In the ancient times when population and labor force determined the strength of a tribe, in order to prevent the theft of children and the abduction of women, the ancients marked newborn babies and newly married women, called "zi"; later it was extended to be part of the coming-of-age ceremony: for ordinary men in ancient times After adulthood, people make "annotations" or "explanations" on the proximate meaning of their "name", which is also called "zi"; there are also people at the bottom who have "names" but no "zi". The seal script continues the gold script shape. After Liliization, the regular script of the seal script was written as "宀" and the seal character as "子". In ancient times, parents verbally called their underage children "name", just like today's "nicknames" and "nicknames", which are used in daily informal social situations and are nicknames; when the children become adults, they designate names for them. The written name is called "zi", such as today's "big name" and "household name", which are used in various documents and formal social occasions as honorifics; "name" and "zi" are two titles for the same person, "zi" It is an explanation or supplement to "name"; what people today call "name" is equivalent to what the ancients called "zi". [5]
The original meaning of "zi" is the pregnancy of a woman. "Shan Hai Jing·Zhongshan Jing·Zhongci Qi Jing": "There is a tree on it, called Huang Jian, with yellow flowers and leaves. It is actually like orchid, and there is no word for it." "Yi Tun": "Haozhen" , not the word. "Yu Huan notes: "The word , pregnancy is also extended to female animals. "Hanshu·Yan'an Biography": "Liu Animal Sui Zi." Yan Shigu's note: "The word means birth." From this, it is extended to hatching. "Lun Heng·On Death": "The word "chicken egg" is also called: "When it dissolves in the mouth, when it collapses, it looks like the shape of water." "The word" is also extended from the meaning of fertility to "nurturing". "Poetry·Daya·Shengmin": "The birth place is in a narrow alley, and the words cattle, sheep and fibula are there." From this, it is extended to love. "Book Kang Gao": "If the father cannot call his son, he will be sick." Sun Xingyan said: "The word is love." It is also extended to education and governance. Liu Yuxi of the Tang Dynasty wrote in his Reply to Raozhou Yuan's Envoy: "The principle of guarding the people is too thorough, but it is not enough to detect it; the people are very rich, and it is not allowed to invade." It is also extended to Xu Marry. "Zhengzi Tong·Zibu": "Zi, a woman who wants to marry is called Zi." The original meaning of "Zi" is fertility, so the combined character symbol born from the fertilization of the single "Wen" is called "Zi". "Shuowen Jiezi · Preface": "When Cangjie first wrote a book, the cover was based on pictograms, so it was called Wen. Later, the shape and sound complemented each other, which is called Zi. The word is a word that breeds breasts and soaks in many words." Later, , "Word" is also extended to things written in words, such as fonts, calligraphy works, letters, notes, etc.