Sunday, 1 February 2026

The pictographic element of the Chinese written script: 04 (Extended to make new concepts)


人 rén / human, person --> you can see the image of a (headless) human being with one leg stretched out in front


大 dà / big --> the human stretches out both arms, so s/he becomes big


天 tiān / sky, Heaven (the ruling body in the ancient Chinese tradition) --> if the human starts to think s/he is big, above him/her is the sky / Heaven (the ruling body)


太 tài / excessive --> 大 dà is already big, adding one stroke to it makes it too much


The pictographic element of the Chinese written script: 03 (Body parts)


口 mouth --> this is the most obvious representation


心(心) heart --> it's more obvious if you think of the usual shape for a heart (♡) but broken up into four different bits -- a sad image indeed) 


目 mù / eye --> turn it round so that it's lying on the long side of the rectangle and you'll see that it's supposed to look like an eye. (Don't ask me why they couldn't have left it lying on the long side of the rectangle since it's more graphically obvious.)


手 shǒu / hand --> the horizontal lines are supposed to be the fingers.


足 zú / foot --> I'll leave you to work out the image for yourself.


耳 ěr / ear --> I'll leave you to work out the image for yourself.