The oldest Chinese characters have been found at shells from tortoises and various bones. They were used as a sort of oracles. Someone carved in the characters, which usually was a question, in to the bones or shells. The shell / bone was then heated up over the fire or with hot pins until it cracked. From the cracks they could read about the future. Many of those bones and shells, (often called dragon bones) have survived until present time. We can therefor see how they looked like in the beginning. Dragon bones are a fairly recent "discovery". The bones had been used in various Chinese traditional medicines and was sold at most drugstores. The bones was sold to the drugstores by Chinese farmers who often found them in their fields. The bones was given the name "Dragon bones" to give it a touch of mysticism. One day in 1899, a man with a cold walked in to one of those drugstores. He wanted to buy some medicine. While waiting for his medicine he looked at a bowl with those bones. When he looked more closely he found that something was carved in to them. He get very excited and bough all of the bones. He and his friends then went all over the city to buy those bones and examines them. This discovery is today the best known source to old traditional Chinese characters. Both Chinese and western scientists work with this today.
Every year a few more old Chinese characters are discovered this way. The characters we show below are all with explanations that the scientist assumes is the right. To tell the truth, no one can be totally sure about it. Often the original meaning is held in darkness and we have to guess it. Some characters is under strong debate about their original meaning while others are more or less 100% proven to have a certain origin.
In
those picture you can to the left se the old Chinese character and to the
right how it looks today, in simplified Chinese version.
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Beautiful. This was from the beginning a person with a headgear made from a goats horns and a birds feathers. This was considered to be beautiful at that time. |
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Good. A woman taking care of a child is something good. It symbolizes family happiness. |
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Not. Was from the beginning the roots of a plant. The part that was under the ground ( the roots ) wasn't anything that they wanted to have. It wasn't possible to eat that. It was the parts over the ground lever that they worked so hard for. |
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Peace, calm. A woman under the roof of a house is something that will bring the man peace. It was the woman who cared for the household. |
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Vehicle. This is a picture of a vehicle from that time. The second character fro, the right is the way it looks today in Japan and Taiwan. They still use the traditional Chinese characters. |
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Classical. Two hands holding a valuable book. Books at that time were usually bamboo sticks, which was joined together. |
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Tall. A tower with two floors |
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To buy. Was from the beginning a fishing net and a seashell. Those seashells were used as money. With seashells you can buy fishing net. |
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To sell. The difference is that this one has something on top of it. It is a simple form of the character for 'out' |
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'Out'. Was from the beginning a seed capsule who is slinging its seed out. |
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Friend. Not so very logical maybe but the character has had different meanings during the years. It symbolizes an old currency. At that time they used seashells on a rope. Money is in some ways a friend so maybe there is some logic in it after all. |
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New, unripe. Is a new plant coming up of the ground with its first leafs. |
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Water. You can see the river with the river banks at the sides |
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Rice field. This is a part in many other characters as well. Rice have been of utmost importance for China during a long time. |
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Man, male. It was usually the man who worked at the rice fields. This is a hand working in the rice field = man |
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Rabbit. Just for fun we took this to show that it do not have to be so clear all the time what the character is supposed to show. |