Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Amazing Chinese Characters (272) Crimson - 赤

The shell bone script of character Crimson is

the top is a Person, the bottom is Fire

The original meaning is that a person is executed by burning stake.

The bronze script of the character is

The big seal script of the character is
The fire punishment was discarded long time ago in China, I don't know when but it could be more than 2000 years ago. Then the character changed its meaning to Crimson - a hot red.

The small seal script of the character is
The top is still Person, but the curve of the two lines is close to flat, not much like a person. From 大 to more like 土. It is possible to make the top short to make room for the Fire in the bottom.

The clerical script for the character is
The top finally changed to 土, completed different from original 大, which is a mistake. The bottom is also dislike 火 (Fire), at most we may say, there is a little bit similarity to the old scripts.

The song typeface of the character is
Same as the clerical script.

The Pinyin for  赤 is Chi4.

Similar to English, 赤 is exchangeable with 红(Red) in some situations, but not the exactly same.




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