Monday, November 30, 2020

Amazing Chinese Characters (317) Harvest and Abundance - 丰

 The shell bone script of character Abundance is

The explanation of Dictionary of Pictography 《象形字典》 is that it is the tree in the border of districts, growing well. But I think that it should be the mature grain ear with soil or root (such as wheat, rice), the soil or root in the bottom means that it is still growing in field. The script means "Rich harvest", which is one of the character meanings.

One of the bronze script of the character is

similar to shell bone script.

Another bronze script of the character is

There is a cooking pot, there are two crop ears without root inside, so the ears are food now. Pot is full of the ears, which means Abundance.

The two are related: one is crop ear matured in the field (Harvest), another is a lot of ears ready to be cooked (Abundance)

The big seal script of the character is

similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

which is similar to bronze script of Harvest.

Another small seal script of the character is 

which is similar to bronze and big seal scripts of Abundance.

The clerical script of the character is

similar to old scripts of Abundance.

The traditional song typeface keeps two characters, one is

very similar to clerical script of Abundance.
 
another one is

similar to small seal script of Harvest. 

Simplified song typeface combines the two to one: 丰. In simplified song typeface, 丰 has both Harvest and Abundance meanings.

Both has same pronunciation: Feng1.


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