Sunday, November 22, 2020

Amazing Chinese Characters (315) Gas - 气(氣)

 The shell bone script of character Gas is


The Dictionary of Pictography (象形字典)explains that the top line is the sky, the bottom line is the earth, the middle line is the air. I think that the three lines are air flow or light cloud. But it is same as character Three, which is confusing.

The bronze script of the character is


air flow or cloud in the sky, big difference from the character three.

The big seal script of the character is

similar to the bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

just the air low or cloud.

or

The top is the air flow, the bottom 


is Rice. 

In dictionary, the two are same. But I think that the top one is for air flow, gas, cloud, the physical flows outside human body; the bottom one is the flow of idea, or flow of energy in body, popular concepts in Qi Gong (Chi Gong) because it is related to human energy and activity, so there is character Rice - 米, food could produce the energy flow.

The clerical script of the character is


similar to the second small seal script above. 

The song typeface for traditional character is


very similar to the clerical script.

The song typeface for simplified character is


similar to the older scripts, the air flows. 

As I mentioned above, the character has two meanings: the physical air flow or gas or steam or water vapor or cloud, etc. also the flow of idea, energy in human body which is invisible, such as the Chi in Chi Gong (Qi Gong).


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