What will short-tailed birds finally fly to: Unveiling the Journey of Chinese Characters

Last time, I predicted that this article would describe the character “隹”, which means short-tailed birds.

In fact, the evolution of the character “隹” is a little complicated for non-native learners. I will try to introduce it, but I won’t discuss it in depth.

I understand that most people may read articles on the net just for fun instead of studying as diligently as a student.

Maybe you have already guessed what the ancient character for “隹” probably looks like from the ancient character for “鳥 bird” in the previous article. I’ve mentioned that the character “鳥” means long-tailed birds, and the character “隹” means short-tailed bird. However,in fact (unfortunately), you may not be able to recognize both of them.

Let’s take a look at the following picture that contains different images of the character “隹”, you may not know why these graphics symbolize “short-tailed bird”.

If you have the idea that “Some characters ‘鳥’ even have shorter tails!”, please don’t argue with me. I’m not from the past, but I know the modern character “鳥” displays its long tail. (Look at the elegant curved line in the lower part of the word “鳥”.)

Although the meaning of “隹” as “short-tailed bird” is still preserved in modern times, it’s no longer in common use. We use the word “鳥” to refer to all birds, while the character “隹” is going to a different developmental.

If you have read my previous articles, you may have guessed that the character “隹” has also become one of the radicals of Chinese characters.

Although the practical use of modern Chinese characters no longer distinguishes the difference between the two, you can still understand the difference between the character “鷄” and “雞” (long-tailed chicken and short-tailed chicken).

But what does “a different development” refer to?

There are six categories in “Chinese character classification” which is wrote as “六書” in Chinese. It’s basic knowledge in Chinese class and you can learn all Chinese characters systematically through it.

The character “隹” belongs to the category of “假借” which contains “rebus characters” or “phonetic loan”.

The explanation of “假借 Jiajie” in “說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (an ancient Chinese dictionary)” is that “There were no dedicated characters originally, but borrowed similar or homophonous characters for use”.

According to this explanation, we know that when we see the character “隹”, it may have another meaning.

“Oh no! Chinese characters are too difficult to learn!” — Hey, did you shout that out?

Hmm-hmm, there are also some examples in English, right?

“Let’s have a picnic by the river bank in front of the River Bank.”

“I take notes about the paper on paper.”

Are we tied?

Next time, when you see the short-tailed birds nesting under your roof, you may think of this article you have read. And maybe you will use your mother tongue to create lots of sentences containing the same words but with the different meanings.

If you are this type of creative master, please share your work with me!