Catch the star onto the paper : Unveiling the Journey of Chinese Characters

Twinkle, twinkle, little star! How I wonder what you are?

Hmm, I bet you must hear this song!

In my last 2 articles, I introduced the character “日 sun” and “月 moon”, now, it’s the character “星 star” ’s turn!

Have you ever thought about the issue of the star field? (Oh, I don’t mean the game.)

Even though we in modern times know that the sun is just an ordinary star in the universe, for ancient people, the sun was the most dazzling light in the sky. Therefore, in mythology stories or literary works, people gave the sun many meanings and stories.

So, what about the stars?

Most stars can only be clearly observed at night, so the status of stars in people’s minds may not be as high as that of the moon.

There is an idiom in Chinese called “眾星拱月 (The stars surround the moon)”, which means to crowd around or revolve around somebody.

This idiom is enough to highlight the status of the stars and the moon in people’s minds. The moon that is closer to the earth is obviously more eye-catching — This is despite the fact that the moon only reflects sunlight and does not emit its own light.

There are so many stars in the sky, so how did the ancient people engrave (depict) this character?

Let’s take a look at the following picture.

Look! Are these characters cute?

But before you appreciate this lovely character, I must point out that the character “生” (the red stroke in the picture) in the character “星” is actually a “sound symbol”, not the ancient people’s imagination of ropes hanging stars in the sky.

By the way, if you are curious about this character “生”, I’ll introduce it in the next time.

Without the “sound symbol” in the character “星 star”, we can observe that the character consists only of circles or squares. Isn’t it like the stars we see at night?

Till now, I’ve already introduced 7 hieroglyphic characters in traditional Chinese. Were you inspired by them?

Hey! I thought of a fun game!

Are you interested in creating something?

Hey! I thought of a fun game!

Are you interested in creating something?

How about creating your own hieroglyphic character?

Next time, when you see something you like, try to depict it, and then simplify it! You will create your OWN characters!

After creating a certain number of hieroglyphic characters, try to search ancient Chinese characters and compare them, observing the difference among them.

Go ahead and give it a try!