Grass! Full of Grass! : Unveiling the Journey of Chinese Characters

(Hey! I’m a day late again! I’ve been busy creating an e-book, hope you don’t mind!)

Have you ever observed grass? In a vast grassy ground, each tuft of grass is a unique entity. They may look similar, but are each distinct.

Ancient people used simple sketches to depict the shape of grass, which eventually evolved into the character “艸”. Later on, variations like “屮”, “芔”, and “茻” emerged from it. Interesting, isn’t it?

Although these four characters are not commonly used today, understanding their meanings can be quite enriching, don’t you think?

“屮” refers to “newly sprouted plants.”

“艸” is a general term for herbaceous plants. It was later gradually replaced by the original character for “草”, which is originally meaning “oak tree fruit,” becoming the modern character “草”, and now commonly used to represent grass. The original “艸” has become a radical, and simplified as “艹.”

“芔” was also a general term for herbaceous plants but later evolved into the character “卉”, resembling the current “艹” radical which is simplified from “艸”. However, please note that the horizontal line at the bottom should be connected for proper writing.

“茻” denotes tufted grass/a multitude of grass/an abundance of grass.

If you’ve come across Japanese internet culture, you may have noticed that when people discuss something amusing, they often add the character “草” (pronounced as “kusa” in Japanese) in brackets. This comes from the Japanese word for “laughter” (“warai”), which originally started with the letter “w.” When someone laughs aloud and types several “w” characters in a row, it resembles a field of grass, hence the usage of “(草).”

Let’s take a look at the image above! (Finally, no longer repeating “Let’s take a look at the following picture” in my previous articles!)

How do you think about these Chinese characters? Aren’t they adorable?

Today, the character “艸(艹)” as a radical “governs” many Chinese characters related to herbaceous plants, making it the most frequently used radical in Chinese characters.

In Chinese characters containing radical “艸”, some have evolved to acquire different meanings, some continue to refer as specific plants names, and you can also find some character with this radical, but you don’t know how they relate to this radical “艸”. (In ancient dictionary, ancient scholar noted that certain characters belong to this radical are unknown.)

As one of the oldest Chinese characters, “艸 (草)” has had plenty of time to evolve into various forms, especially as it represents a common element in our lives: grass.

By the way, it’s interesting that nearly all characters governed by the “艸 (艹)” radical are phonetic-semantic compounds. If you remove the upper “艸 (艹),” the remaining part of the character often corresponds to its pronunciation! It’s not always a perfect match due to ancient pronunciation variations, but it’s quite close!

Next time, when you encounter a herbaceous plant you like, why not consult a dictionary to see how it’s depicted in Chinese characters? You might develop a fondness for it and… remember it!