When we draw a circle and named it “Sun” : Unveiling the Journey of Chinese Characters

Have you ever looked at the sun and felt dizzy?

I guess most of people have this experience and also ancient people had. When they looked at the sun, pointed it and made the sound of “sun” in Proto-Sinitic language which is earlier than Old Chinese or Archaic Chinese, the sun had its name.

Ancient people marked a circle or a square to record the strange lighted-ball as the sun. As you know, the character of “日 sun” hasn’t changed significantly to this day.

I’m not sure if there are any stories or myths about the sun in your country or region. There are several stories and myths about the sun, and some myths describing the appearance of the sun as a bird with golden and blazing feathers.

Imagine this: A radiant golden bird flapping its wings in the sky and, its dazzling the people on the land.

How vivid a scene it is!

The vast land now known as China has given birth to various writings of the character “日 sun”.

Most of the character “日 sun” are written in a circle or a square shape with a point or a horizontal/longitudinal line in the central of the shape.

But there are special characters with a vastly different appearance.

Look at the following picture. Have you noticed the characters containing the bird(s) in the first row?

Maybe the ancient people had believed that a golden bird was flying in the sky and bring the land light, or that a shining golden bird lived in the sun, thus creating the image of this Chinese character.

It’s a romantic imagination, right?

So, what’s the story with the second line of those characters?

I’m not entirely sure what the truth is, but I have two guesses. (Don’t worry, I’ve already asked more professional people. If I get the answer, I will update this article as soon as possible.)

My first guess is: this is still a hieroglyph. It’s like the sun is rising above the horizon. (The graphic “土” below the “strange” sun characters means soil, the character “土”. Of course, it might just be a simple graphic, too.)

And my second guess is more complicated. The second line of the characters in above picture is also like the other character “至”, which is meaning “to” — When the sun rises, people “go to” a new day……

Nonetheless, I believe that the characters related to nature should be simpler. After all, it is a natural phenomenon that people all over the world can see easily.

What do you think?