Amazing Chinese Characters (172) Towel - 巾

The big seal script for character Towel is

The middle vertical line is a rope, which ties the arch-alike towel, which is a simplified skirt, like grass skirt people wore in the ancient time.

The small seal script for the character is

which is similarity to the big seal script.

The meaning of the character changed to Towel long time ago, and people created another character for Skirt - 裙.

The clerical script for the character is

The current standard printing script is

巾

All scripts are very similar. 

Its Pinyin is Jin1.

Amazing Chinese Characters (171) Hang - 吊

The shell bone script of character Hang is

The middle one

is Person.

The bend curve with an arrow is a rope. The character means that using a rope to tie a person and hang on some where. The arrow up means that the rope is pulled up. 

The big seal script of the character is

which changed a lot, no similarity to the shell bone script.

The top is a person's head, and the bottom

is Towel or Cloth or any thing related, including the ropes made by cloth. Here is rope. The character means that using a rope to hang a person, which is same meaning as the shell bell script.

The small seal script for the character is

which is similar to the shell bone script.

The clerical script of the character is

which is similar to the big seal script.

It is unclear why the character changed back and forth.

The song typeface of the character is

吊

which is almost same as its clerical script.

Its Pinyin is Diao4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (170) Window - 窗

The shell bone script of character Window is

which is a ventilation window.

The big seal script of the character is

The small seal script of the character is

There is a top over the window, which means "cave house", or a cave for living. Ancient Chinese digged caves for residence. There are many people live in cave houses in Northwest China.

The clerical script of the character is

It has some similarity to small seal script.

The song typeface of the character is

窗

Its Pinyin is Chuang1.

Amazing Chinese Characters (169) Man - 男

The shell bone script of character Man is

the left part is character Field,

the right part is character Power

actually it is a plow.

Man is the one who is ploughing in the field. It is true, in the ancient time, only men took care of ploughing field. At that time, Ox were not trained to pull the plow, men had to pull the plow.

The character is an ideogram.

The small seal script for the character is

The character Field is on the top, and the Power (plow) is on the bottom.

The clerical script for the character is

The current standard printing script is

男

Its pinyin is Nan2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (168) Power or Strength - 力

The shell bone script of character Strength is

which is a plow.

Ancient Chinese used man power to pull the plow (not Ox), so only the most powerful and strength man could pull the plow.

Let's see its big seal script

and its small seal script

The clerical script of the character is

which changed a lot, difficult to see the similarity.

The current standard printing script is

力

very similar to the clerical script.

Its Pinyin is Li4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (167) Self - 自

The shell bone script of character Self is

which is a picture of nose.

Originally, the character meant Nose. But the meaning changed later to Self. Why did ancient Chinese use nose to be Self? Because Chinese like to use a finger to point to his or her nose when they say "me" or "self" (Americans like to point to his or her chest), so the nose represents "self".

The big seal script of the character is

Let's see the small seal script,

which changed a lot, but still has some similarity to a nose.

The clerical script is

which is similar to the small seal script.

The song typeface of the character is

自

which is very similar to the clerical script.

Its pinyin is Zi4.

I need to point out that there was another character created sometime later,

pronounced Za2, one 口 (Mouth) added to the left of 自, which means I or Me or Self, being used more often in oral Chinese. 

It is understandable, people point the Mouth and Nose area to indicate Self. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (166) Father - 父

The shell bone script of character Father is

which is a hand holding an ax or other tools. Father was a man who took the hardest job to support the family, also he was the man who had the power to set the family rules. Many times, the character is explained as a hand holding a stick for father to beat family member who didn't follow his rules.

The big seal script of the character is

similar to shell bone script.

The small seal script of the character is

We can see the hand, but the stick is bent now, not still similar to its shell bone script.

The clerical script for the character is

Which is different from the old scripts. The bottom cross two strokes could be seen as the hand, the top left could be seen as the stick. The top right one is unclear. I don't know what it presents for.

The song typeface of the character is

父

Which is similar to the clerical script.

Its pinyin is Fu4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (165) Wife - 妻

The shell bone script of character Wife is

The bottom is character Woman, the up right is a hand grabbing her hairs. In ancient time, people often to capture women to force marriage. The character describes the situation. It is sad but unfortunately it is true.

Let's see its small seal script

which is formed by character Woman

and character Claw (or Hand)

Which means that man catched up a woman and forced her to be his wife, explained by dictionary.

Some people explained that the man touched the woman by hand to show his love, which is more accepted by morden society.

Its clerical script is

similar to its small seal script.

The current standard printing script is

妻

Similar to its clerical script.

Its pinyin is Qi1.

Amazing Chinese Characters (164) Oil - 油

The shell bone script of character Oil is

one drop over a pan.

Similar to shell bone script.

Its small seal script is

which changed a lot.  The left part is small seal script for Water. What is the right part? Why was it changed?

Let's see the following

Which are seal scripts for Oil, the left is older than the right. We can see the left is a closed oil pot, the dot is the oil dropt, the 人 over the dot should be something like a pipe for pouring out of oil. The right one should be standard small script for Oil, but the oil drop and the pipe connected together to become 十.

By some unknown reasons, the right character had been used for another meaning - From: formed from, caused from, ect. So people added a Water on the left of the right character to keep the meaning of Oil.

Here Water means liquid.

The clerical script for character Oil is

The left is the radical for Water, the right one is similar to the small seal script.

The current standard printing script is

油

very similar to clerical script.

I need to point out that Chinese use 油 for Gasoline too because it is liquid. Chinese think Gas is something like air, not liquid.

Its pinyin is You2.