boon's log stardate 3403.04 supplementary B
One cool thing we discussed yesterday is about how the Seal Script Chinese characters were developed/generated. The first script that is still of relevance today is the "Seal Script" zhuan4shu1. It is the result of the efforts of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang Di (The Tiger Emperor), in the standardization of the Chinese script when he united the Warring States into a magnificent empire. The Seal Script, as the name suggests, is now only used in artistic seals. Few people are still able to read the seal script, although the art of carving a traditional seal in the seal script remains an art in China today.

According to legend, one day, the emperor went to pay his top calligrapher a surprised visit - the one empowered to standardize the Chinese Calligraphic characters, but the assistant found out that the calligrapher was asleep. To avoid disappointing the emperor, the assistant collected some scripts that were in the midst of being created from the calligrapher's drawing-board for the emperor for examination. In the process, there may have been a mixed up between the meanings of the words with the words themselves. We all know that the Chinese characters are very closely related with the shape of what the words stands for. For example, this word


This is tian2, meaning padi field. Observe the shape of the square-ish padi fields?

Here is another one. The very basic "Man" or ren2. The character replicates a human walking.


However, check these out...

The "tian2" in the middle with the 4 legs at the bottom would have suggested an animal who works in the field (tian2) or a Cow (niu2). But the actual meaning of the character is fish or yu2

Compare with this one

Rotate it 90degC to the right and connect the lines, you will get the shape of a fish.

But the actual meaning of the character is Cow...

Spot anything similar yourselves? Let me know. Write to boon

Amazing? Believe it or not...

boon out...