Amazing Chinese Characters (193) Drink - 饮

The shell bone script for character Drink is

the left part is a wine pot, and right part is tongue.

The bronze script for the character is

the left part is the wine pot, and the right is a person who holds the pot and try to drink the wine with his tongue.

The small seal script for the character is

which is similar to the bronze script on the left part, the right part is same as a person who is drinking.

The clerical script for the character is

which is changed a lot, not much similarity to the old scripts. The left part actually means Eat, not Wine Pot. Right part means Owe, not a person who is drinking. The reason why it changed to this form is unknown.

The current standard song typeface of traditional character is

飲

very similar to the clerical script.

The song typeface of simplified character is

饮

Its pinyin is Yin3.

Amazing Chinese Characters (192) For - 为

The shell bone script for character For is

the left part is a hand, the right part is a vertical elephant, which means that a person guides an elephant to work for people.

The small seal script for the character is

which is a little bit complicated, the top is the hand, the long nose from top right, cross to left and go down along left, the bottom five vertical lines are elephant's legs and tail.

The clerical script for this character is

which is similar to the small script.

But there is another one

the nose here is more straight forward.

It is a very interesting ideogram character.

The current standard printing song script for traditional character is

為

which is similar to the clerical script above except only one dot for a hand.

The current standard printing song script for simplified character is

为

which has lost the pictography, and difficult to see any sign of had and elephant. You have to memorize it even it has less strokes.

Its pinyin is Wei4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (191) Village - 乡

The shell bone script for character Village is

two men sit on each side of a food utensils to have dinner.

Why does it mean "Village"? There is no explanation. I think that people in the village did eat together in that time.

I think that there were no cities, and towns in ancient time. People lived together to form villages surrounded by rural countryside where few people. People could only go to village to meet people and eat with friends in restaurants. 

The small seal script for the character is

the middle one is the utensils, but the two sides are not people but the place where people live, such as village, or township. We may think that there is a food utensils, and people sit on each side,  but there are many people, not just two. So the village is big village, or big township.

The clerical script for the character is

which lost the similarity. The right part means Ear, and the left part is unknown. One dictionary explains the change was caused by mistakenly writing.

The current standard song script for simplified character is

乡

The current standard song script for traditional character is

鄉

Its Pinyin is Xiang1.

Amazing Chinese Characters (190) Eat - 食

The shell bone script for character Eat is

the top is a mouth, and the bottom is a utensils, which means that some one is eating food.

Other explanation is that the top is the lid of a pan, the bottom is rice in a utensil, which means that the food in a pot covered by a lid.

I don't know which one is better. We see many the triangle top for Mouth. However the bottom is more like pot, not utensils which was not used 3000+ years ago.

The bronze script of the character is

The small seal script of the character is

similar to the shell bone script, but less pictographic. The mouth touches the utensils, and the legs of utensils are not in the middle.

The clerical script for the character is

still a little bit similarity, but changed a lot.

It current standard song script is

食

Its Pinyin is Shi1.

食 original is Eat, but gradually, it means Food too, especially combined with other characters, such as 食物，食品，饮食，etc. When you learn more, you will understand those compound words.