Who is "I"? Where did "I" come from? Where is "I"? This is a very philosophical set of questions, so have you ever wondered who "I" really is? Is this "me" really "me"? How did the word "I" come from? This can be a bit of a detour. So today I will talk to you about "I".
When I say "I", I don't mean myself, the word "I" is first-person, referring to myself. However, this word did not mean this in ancient times, and it is even very different from what we use today. The word "I" belongs to the Huiyi character in the six laws of character creation, and it is related to ancient weapons. If you think about it carefully, if the word "I" is separated from the middle left and right, then the left side is a "hand" word, and the right side is a "Go" word. Go refers to a weapon, so the word "I" originally meant holding a weapon in his hand.
It is said that during the Zhou Dynasty, the weapons used by soldiers were made of bronze. And "I" is a kind of cold weapon, which is mostly used to slash and kill enemies on the battlefield. It is also said in the Commentaries on the Interpretation of Texts that "I" was equivalent to killing in ancient times. The "I" weapon was popular for a long time, from the middle and late Shang Dynasty to the Warring States Period. The weapon "I" was mainly used against leather armor, and the existence of leather armor made it difficult for the bronze swords at that time to cut and cause effective damage. And the "I" weapon, its shape is a bit like a halberd, its lethality is very large.
But later, the emergence of iron weapons also made the bronze weapon "I" slowly disappear. Although "I" has lost the meaning of killing and weapons in the development of history, it has achieved a new life and become a first-person pronoun, so why does it become a personal pronoun? I also checked a lot of information on this point, but I still didn't understand it too much. My personal understanding is that, for example, in ancient times, armies fighting wars were divided into different branches of the army according to the different weapons used by soldiers.
For example, the use of bows and arrows is the bow and arrow team, the use of spears is the spear team, etc., and at that time, during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the soldiers holding the weapon "I" should be the "I" team. Then in an army, the number of "I" squares should be the largest, and probably from that time on, "I" will be used as a pronoun in the army.
During that period, the number of people joining the army accounted for a very large proportion of the total number of people in the country. For example, the conscription system in the Warring States period would make every household send men to serve as soldiers, and these soldiers might bring the habit of "I" home after demobilization. So "I" slowly became a kind of personal pronoun, right?
What I just said was just a little bit of my personal thoughts. So, do you have any other high opinions? Welcome to leave a comment, of course, I think this episode is not in vain, after all, let everyone know who "I" is, where does "I" come from? Where to go!