Saturday 13 May 2017

花 | huā

In Mandarin Chinese, the literal meaning of (Pinyin: huā 🔊) is “flower”. This word has many figurative meanings, such as “pattern” (floral or otherwise), “pinnacle”, “fireworks”, “a beauty” or “a lady of the night”. forms many compounds, such as 茶花 (cháhuā) “camellia”, 火花 (huǒhuā) “spark” and 水花 (shuǐhuā) “spray”.

The top part of this character, , means “grass”. We’ve seen this radical before as a part of (chá), “tea”. The bottom part, (huà), in its turn, consists of two , i.e. “people”: one upright () and another upside down, together symbolising “change” or “reversal”. According to Ponte Ryūrui,

The bottom part of (, , i.e. “action of making something”, “change”) acts purely phonetically, although certain etymology theories suggest to take as “a change” of the state of a plant (blossoming).

More photos related to flowers, fireworks, hanzi and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.

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