Amazing Chinese Characters (287) Calculate - 算

The bronze script of character Calculate is

which is a schematic diagram, the bamboo sticks in different arrays to express different number.

The big seal script of the character is

The top is called "Bamboo head", means that the character is related to bamboo. The middle is the diagram of the bamboo sticks, and the bottom are two hands.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to the big seal script.

The clerical script of the character is

Some similarity to the old scripts.

Which is similar to Chinese abacus.

which has been used about at least 1800 years.

It is interesting to point out that the character had a simplified song typeface:

祘

Which had been used for two decades, but it is abandoned about 1980s . The reason why it is abandoned may be that it has nothing to do with the old scripts. It is good to stop using the strange one.

Its Pinyin is Suan4.