Seeing the title of this article, you will think: "Meal" and "歺" are one Chinese character? It is hard to imagine that they were once regarded as a Chinese character, so much so that now ordinary people still confuse them. For example, "restaurant" is written as "funeral hall"; "three meals a day" is written as "three meals a day". In a given period, both had a common pronunciation of cān, one was written in an orthodox way (meal) and the other was written in two simplified characters (歺), which was not written in a different way. This article will talk about their stories.
Strange two words
Simplifying "meal" to "歺" is somewhat outrageous
"歺", everyone is certainly not unfamiliar, is still the Chinese characters on hand of the common people, such a word, the official does not recognize, but in the folk but popular Chinese characters. Because this way of writing is simple and convenient, a few simple strokes can replace the Chinese character "meal" with many strokes. Although the two simple characters have been abolished for many years, the disadvantages outweigh the benefits, but there are always a few good ones that have been circulating in the folk. This simple word "歺" is the best proof. In the last century, the mainland carried out two simplification reforms, and at the beginning there were many strokes of the "meal" character, which was simplified once, and then it felt that it was not complete, so it carried out a second simplification. So the "meal" became the "meal".
"歺" is still widely popular among the people
歺 is originally an independent Chinese character
Leaving aside the two simplified characters, let's not say that "meal" and "歺" are actually two independent, unrelated two Chinese characters. "歺" is pronounced as "è", and if you look at the oracle bone of the "歺" in the picture below, it is like a person's arm, and the meat is cut off by someone with a knife, and it is also like the remaining meat in the bone slit. Xu Shen's "Commentaries on the Interpretation of Texts" says: "歺è, the remnants of the bones." "Evil" is also equivalent to "evil", which means bad, evil. In Chinese characters, most of them have the prefix "evil" associated with the meanings of death, bad, or unlucky. For example, the Chinese characters "remnant, funeral, funeral, martyrdom, annihilation" and so on, are mostly pejorative.
Evolution of the Chinese character 歺
"Meal": Chinese character interpretation
Underneath the "meal" is a "meal" of a food. "Shuowen Jiezi": "Meal, Swallow Also"; "Guangya": "Meal, Food Also". It can be seen that in any case, "meal" is eating. The ancients had a saying that "daytime meal is a meal, dinner is a meal", that is, eating during the day is a "meal", and dinner is a "meal" sūn. "Meals" are all about eating.
lunch
Simplifying "meal" to "歺" is somewhat outrageous
It can be seen that "meal" and "歺" are not connected at all, forcibly combining them together, and simplifying them a little outrageously. If there are other simplified words, they are extenuating in appearance and acceptable. Can simplify this "meal" to the word "歺", there is no food below, there is no hand (again) in the upper right corner, just wait for the rice to open your mouth. Perhaps at that time, the pursuit of light was simple, and the beauty and inheritance of Chinese characters were lost.
Those years, strange two words
Why "歺" is still popular in the folk, there are three reasons:
1. This phenomenon mainly occurs in some older middle-aged and elderly people, young groups rarely write, this is the early teaching method is not standardized, because the learning is not in place to write "meal" as "歺", plus a long time to write, has long been used to.
2. For some elderly people who are older and less literate, there are actually great obstacles to writing, especially some Chinese characters with many strokes. And "歺" is simple, convenient, fast, and will save a lot of time.
3. The convention became, at that time, everyone wrote it, they all formed muscle memories, and it was really difficult to change a person's habits.
Some old people still write this word
Conclusion: Again, Chinese characters have been in change since the day of their birth, but we must be cautious about the reform of Chinese characters and ensure stability in a certain period of time in order to better serve the public.