Extended data
Fu, knowledge and pictophonetic characters. According to Oracle Bone Inscriptions (Figure A) unearthed from Yin Ruins in Henan Province, "Fu" is the image of holding an altar with both hands, which is a knowing word composed of three parts: hand, wine and sign.
Originally, it means to worship God with wine and pray for happiness (all the best). Judging from the above-mentioned Oracle Bone Inscriptions shape, the upper part of the left half is the word "one", which is a container for holding wine, and is actually the initial word of the word "wine". The lower left part is two "hands" (again), which means holding the bottle with both hands; Its right half is a "sign", representing the ancestor's god.
The whole word means to offer a bottle of wine in front of the ancestor's god with both hands and seek God's blessing. When explaining the meaning of the word "Fu", Shuo Wen Jie Zi said "You Ye", which means blessing and blessing. This word has developed to the stage of bronze inscription, with various forms. First, the left and right structural positions of Chinese characters have changed, with the "sign" moving from right to left and the "word" moving from left to right. At the same time, bronze inscriptions save two "hands" for holding wine compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions.
As shown in "Fu" in Figure (b), the hand holding the jar is simplified and the shape of the jar has changed. The wine jar in Figure (c) has been seriously corroded and has been placed on the right side of the "sign"; Figure (d) adds a roof above "You" and "Shi", which means to worship God and analyze happiness at home; The distortion in figure (e) is the largest. The symbol "stone" is placed under the jar, and two back-to-back people are added on both sides (this back-to-back person is the word "North") as the phonetic symbol of the word "Fu".
In the Qin Dynasty, in the stage of Xiao Zhuan (Figure F), the back-to-back pair was omitted, and the jar was mistakenly changed to "Fu", so "Fu" became a pictophonetic character with "Shi" as the meaning and "Fu" as the sound. Later, based on the configuration of this small seal script, it developed into the regular script of Figure (G) and Figure (H), and "Qi" is also used as the phonetic symbol of pictophonetic characters such as "V, V, Amplitude, V ……", which has been used ever since.