Amazing Chinese Characters (219) Island - 岛（島）

The earliest character for Island is big shell script

the top is a Bird (鸟）

The bottom is Mountain （山）

Mountain with birds on or over it is Island.

It is not very accurate, because island is a mountain surrounded by water. But in the ancient time, all islands had a lot of birds living on, much more than that on the mountain inland,  which impressed ancient Chinese, so they used bird-on-mountain to be the character of Island.

The small shell script for Island

The top is small shell Bird, and the bottom is small shell Mountain.

The clerical script for Island

The bottom is Mountain of clerical script. The top is partial Bird of clerical script.

The four dots of Bird have replaced by character Mountain.

Traditional song typeface of the character is

島

Similar to the clerical script.

Simplified song typeface of the character is

岛

Its Pinyin is Dao3.