In Mandarin Chinese, 飞 (Pinyin: fēi🔊) is a word of many meanings. As a verb, it means “to fly”, “to flutter”, or “to evaporate”. It also could be an adjective for “fast”, “unexpected”, “unfounded”, or an adverb “very” or “extremely”.
飞 is a simplified form of the traditional hanzi 飛. If you look carefully, you’ll see that the traditional character contains two飞 bits, one on top of the other. Uncle Hanzi writes “a flying bird with long neck and big wings” without specifying explicitly whether he refers to 飛 or 飞. I see a long neck (and a long beak) and not-so-big wings in the simplified character.
Some compounds of 飞 include
飞 + 天 = 飞天 (fēitiān): to fly in the sky; to travel into space
Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:
As per 亡 (obscure) + 心 heart/emotions → obscure state of mind, in the form of forgetfulness or overlooking something → forget; overlook; leave behind.
As forgetting usually has negative connotations, 忘 is often found in combination with 不 “not”: 不忘 (bù wàng), “don’t forget”:
念 + 念 + 不 + 忘 = 念念不忘 (niàn niàn bù wàng): to keep in mind constantly; to never forget
永 + 志 + 不 + 忘 = 永志不忘 (yǒng zhì bù wàng): to remember forever and never forget
安 + 不 + 忘 + 危 = 安不忘危 (ān bù wàng wēi): to be mindful of possible danger in time of peace
But why should it have negative connotations? One of my university professors used to call the ability to forget a golden feature of our brain. Without it, our memories, to quote Funes the Memorious, would be “like a garbage heap”. Not only that. In his Nobel Lecture, Elie Wiesel said:
it is surely human to forget, even to want to forget. The Ancients saw it as a divine gift. Indeed if memory helps us to survive, forgetting allows us to go on living.
Like other hanzi with 心 in the lower part (思, 想, 念, 意, 息), 忘 reminds me of a sailship.
For the purposes of this post, I took the liberty to replace わす with 忘. Blyth also writes in a footnote to the word “forget-me-not” (ibid., p. 314):
The Japanese is a “forget-me” flower, the day-lily.
In other words, 忘れ草, which Blyth translated as “forget-me-not”, is a completely different flower, Hemerocallis fulva. Shokyū-ni (1714—1781) probably wasn’t even aware of the European forget-me-not, Myosotis sylvatica. According to Wiktionary, the word 忘れな草 (wasurenagusa), a calque of English forget-me-not, was first attested in 1913. So it seems that, for the benefit of English readers, Blyth radically changed the meaning of the haiku. It really should be
The “forget-me” flower is blooming;
But the things of long ago, —
How can I forget them?
In Mandarin Chinese, 明 (Pinyin: míng🔊) is a word of many meanings. As an adjective, it stands for “bright”, “brilliant”, “light”, “clear”, “transparent”, “apparent”, “open”, “acute”, “sharp”, “keen”, “intelligent”, “perceptive” and, less obviously, “next” or “following”. As a noun, it can mean “vision”, “sight” or “light”, as well as “tomorrow”. As a verb, it can mean “to understand”, “to know”, “to make known” or “to show”. As you can clearly see, these many senses are related and linked to the concept of light. Also, 明 may refer to the Ming dynasty, 明朝 (1368—1644), also referred to as “Great Ming”, 大明 (Dàmíng).
Does the character 明 look familiar to you? Of course it does: it’s a combination of our old friends 日 “sun” and 月 “moon”. According to Wiktionary, 明 could be interpreted as “the sun just rising and the moon not yet set — dawn” or, alternatively, as “two bright celestial bodies — bright”. Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:
Originally, 月 moon + 向 (ventilation hole) → bright moonlight streaming through an open window, and manifesting the hidden → brightness; light. Extended meanings from the idea of the light of dawn (signaling the end of one day and the start of the next) include spend/pass (the
night); be visible; the next/following (day/week/year); begin; end; and dawn. Disclose and confide are extended senses of “open” (open up to), as are clarity; evident and obvious. Be conversant with is via the idea of illumination, here with respect to a particular subject matter.
Elsewhere, Howell consistently refers to 明 as “manifest the hidden”.
In Mandarin Chinese, 息 (Pinyin: xī🔊 or xí🔊) is a word of many meanings. As a verb, it can stand for “to breathe”, “to sigh”, “to blow”; “to stop”, “to cease”, “to rest”, “to calm down”; “to grow”, “to develop”. As a noun, it can mean “breath”, “life”, “(one’s) child”, “news”, “message”, “interest” or “dividends”.
According to Wiktionary, 息 is an ideogrammic compound of 自 “nose” and 心, “heart-mind”, meaning “to breathe (life) through one’s nose”. Likewise, Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:
As per 自 (nose) + 心 heart/emotions → breathe through the nostrils in rhythm with the beating of the heart → breath → live → give birth; increase. Also, stop; rest (← stops and starts of steady breathing); interest (← increase); son (← give birth).
It’s curious how the logical extension of “breath” leads to the almost opposite meanings of “growth” (to breath is to live, to live is to grow and give birth) and “rest” (cf. English “take a breather”). I find it very Yin-Yang-y: in order to keep living, you need to take a rest!
Like other hanzi containing 心 in the lower part (e.g. 思, 想, 念, 意), 息 reminds me of a sailship. It’s resting but perfectly ready to go.
In Japanese, 息, in its “breath” meaning, is pronounced iki (いき). Here’s a poem by John White (1924—2021) called The Breath in the Flute (笛の息), from the book of the same name.
The breath in the flute
is the sound of life stirring
springtime and sadness
According to Wiktionary, 喜 is an ideogrammic compound of 壴 “drum” and 口 “mouth”. In its turn, 壴is said to be a pictogram of a “drum 口 with two ends, a base and feathers 土 on top”. It’s not clear what “two ends” refer to. Does it mean that the drum is placed horizontally? But historical forms of 喜 contain a variety of “drums” — some look like djembe and others like timpani.
Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:
As per 壴 as described in 鼓 (round drum set on a stand) + 口 mouth → joyful voices at a feast with musical accompaniment → joy; gladness; like; be fond of; pleasure; happiness → good; desirable; congratulations.
Food and samba: totally my kind of party.
An alternative form of this character, 憙, contains our old friend 心, “heart-mind”:
Combining 喜 with another word for joy, 乐, we get 喜乐 (xǐlè), which means, well, “joy”. Happy joy. Real joy. Not any old semblance of joy but, you know — joy joy.
Other compounds of 喜 include:
喜 + 爱 = 喜爱 (xǐ'ài): to like, to be fond of, to be keen on, to love
喜 + 好 = 喜好 (xǐhào): to like, to be fond of, to be keen on
In Mandarin Chinese, 感 (Pinyin: gǎn🔊) is a word of many meanings. As a verb, it can stand for “to feel”, “to perceive”; “to affect”, “to move”, “to touch”; “be affected by”, “be sensitive to”; “be grateful”, “to thank”; “to long for”, “to miss”, “to be sentimental”, “to sigh with emotion”. As a noun, it can mean “emotion”, “feeling”, “sensation”, “sense” or “thought”.
According to Wiktionary, 感 is a phono-semantic compound of phonetic 咸 and semantic 心, “heart-mind”. Remembering that 心 includes both heart and mind, it’s not difficult to see why Chinese can use the same word 感 for both “emotion” and “thought”.
Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:
咸 (shut) + 心 heart/emotions → emotion/feeling that shuts off sensation (= moves/affects one to the point of muteness or immobility).
However, 咸 really means “all”, “completely”, “together” or “united”. Could the whole combination be “to feel with all heart”?
感 is a simplified form of a traditional character 感. There is a subtle difference between these two. In the traditional 感, the “heart” 心 is drawn inside of the 咸 component, directly below the 口. In the simplified 感, the 心 is placed below the whole 咸 bit.
感 are often combined with other hanzi containing 心 (or its radical form, 忄), for example:
感 + 想 = 感想 (gǎnxiǎng🔊): impressions, reflections, thoughts; to miss, to reminisce, to think of, to yearn for
感 + 念 = 感念 (gǎnniàn): to recall fondly; to recall sadly
音 + 感 = 音感 (yīngǎn): sense of rhythm, pitch, sound, tone quality, etc.
Now for a bit of poetry. Chunwang (春望) is recognised as one of the “best and best-known works” by the Tang dynasty poet Du Fu (杜甫, 712—770). The poem is notoriously difficult to translate. With 春 (chūn) meaning “spring” and 望 (wàng) “to observe”, “to watch”, “to hope”, the title of the poem has been variously rendered as “Spring View”, “Spring Scene”, “Spring Gaze”, “Spring Outlook”, “Spring Prospect”, “Spring Hope” and so on. I like the translation by Vikram Seth, although the name he gave it, Spring Scene in Time of War, conveys more information than needed.
The state lies ruined; hills and streams survive.
Spring in the city; grass and leaves now thrive.
Moved by the times, the flowers shed their dew.
The birds seem startled; they hate parting too.
The steady beacon fires are three months old.
A word from home is worth a ton of gold.
I scratch my white hair which is grown so thin
It soon won’t let me stick my hat pin in.
In Mandarin Chinese, 念 (Pinyin: niàn🔊) is a word with many meanings. As a verb, it can mean “to miss”, “to long for”, “to think of”, “to recall”, “to consider”, “to contemplate”, “to worry”, “to be anxious about”, “to feel compassion for”, “to show affection for”, “to commemorate”, “to pay tribute to”, as well as “to study”, “to learn”, “to read aloud” or “to chant”. As a noun, it can mean “idea”, “thought” or “memory”.
Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:
As per 今 (contain) + 心 heart/emotions → thought/idea contained deep within the heart (compare 意) → caution (← profound idea).
Once again, Howell mentions the meaning “contain”, this time for 今. However, 今 really means “current”, “now”, “present”. On the other hand, 含, itself a phono-semantic compound of 今 and 口, in addition to its original sense “to keep in the mouth”, can indeed mean “to contain”, “to harbor”, etc. Could it be that 口 “mouth” in 含 simply got replaced with 心 “heart”, so 含 “to keep in the mouth” → 念 “to keep in the heart”?
思 + 念 = 思念 (sīniàn🔊): to miss, to think of, to yearn for, to reminisce
想 + 念 = 想念 (xiǎngniàn🔊): to miss, to think of, to yearn for, to reminisce
念 + 想 = 念想 (niànxiǎng): to miss, to cherish; thought, idea, impression; souvenir, keepsake, memento
念 + 白 = 念白 (niànbái): spoken parts of a Chinese opera
念 + 念 + 不 + 忘 = 念念不忘 (niànniàn bù wàng): to keep in mind constantly; to never forget
念 is a simplified form of a traditional character 念, which is also used in Japanese. As you can see, there is no much difference, apart from the stroke under the “roof” 𠆢.
In Japanese, 念 is pronounced nen (ねん) and means “thought”, “feeling”, “care” or “concern”.
