Amazing Chinese Characters (341) Say - 曰

 The shell bone script of character Say is

The bottom is Mouth, the top is the lip, opening to speak from the mouth. 

The bronze script of the character is

 which is a mouth, the top is half opened, means that the moving lip. 

The small seal script of the character is

A mouth in the bottom and half opened tunnel on the top, the moving lip.

The clerical script of the character is

The top is closed, which is not only away from the original pictography, but also making it too close to the character 日 - Sun.

The difference is 日 - Sun is narrower and the middle line is touching both sides. The middle line in character Say is only touching left side. But in the handwriting many people make the difference too small to tell which he means.

The song typeface of the character is

曰

Its Pinyin is Yue1.

曰 - Say is an old writing character, which means, people don't use it in oral speech. Even in writing, people don't use it right now, we only see it in the classical articles. However, we can see it in many compound characters as part of the character with the meaning of Say. 

There is another character Say - 言 （Post 158), which is also a writing character. However, it is still used in modern Chinese.