gnovel Chapter 152 - 95: The 7th Day, Explaining Characters and Words
Chapter 152 - 95: The 7th Day, Explaining Characters and Words
Time is always playing hide and seek with people, passing through the day like the wind, and blooming in the deep night like a flower. In the
Then there were characters like "double trees grow side by side to form a forest, three people gather to form a crowd, a fallen bird by the river becomes a swan. Two people following each other is ’to comply,’ two hands dividing objects is ’to split,’ sunlight shining is ’to dazzle.’ The shape of a smaller upper portion and a larger bottom is ’point,’ eight cuts converging is ’to divide,’ a mountain valley is ’gorge.’ The sun and moon shining together is ’bright,’ rich colors is ’gorgeous,’ beneficial insects under heaven are silkworms..."
"My child, what is a silkworm?" the elder asked thoughtfully, not recalling ever hearing of such a thing with his level of learning.
"The silkworm is an insect from the distant west that eats tree leaves and spins silk cocoons. Silk can be woven into fine, thin silk cloth, valued more than gold, no, valued even higher than the rarest Quetzal feathers."
Xiulote explained. In a Mexica abundant with gold and silver, exquisite feathers were far more precious, regarded as the gifts of divine spirits, while cheap gold was merely the excretion of divine spirits.
The distant west. The elder gave Xiulote a deep look, and said nothing.
These ideographic Chinese characters were the most difficult for Xiulote’s accompanying warriors to master and understand, because their concepts were simple, and their thinking had not yet reached this level. The elder, however, was the fastest Chinese character learner Xiulote had ever seen, and ideograms posed no difficulty for him.
Finally, there were the most numerous of all: the phono-semantic characters. Phono-semantic characters emerged from the foundation of pictographic, indicative and ideographic characters. This is where Chinese characters started, moving from expressing ideas to expressing sounds. Over eighty percent of Chinese characters are phono-semantic, which actually have endless possibilities for expansion.
Phono-semantic characters can have the shape on the left and sound on the right, such as in ’money,’ ’material,’ ’melt,’ ’fuse’; the shape on the right and sound on the left, like in ’release,’ ’duck,’ ’decapitate,’ ’neck’; the shape on top and sound below, as in ’reed,’ ’simple,’ ’empty,’ ’room’; the shape below and sound above, such as in ’firewood,’ ’sauce,’ ’basin,’ ’jar’; the shape inside and sound outside, as in ’hear,’ ’ask,’ ’Min’; and the shape outside with the sound inside, seen in ’divert,’ ’bandit,’ ’crawl,’ ’firm.’
To understand phono-semantic characters, one must devote a long time to learning and using them. However, once they master common patterns, they can actively create new phono-semantic characters. It can be imagined that, on different cultural soils, the Mexica people will certainly create their own unique new phono-semantic Chinese characters in the future.
The elder finally stopped here. He watched Xiulote quietly, his gaze softening for a moment, then returning to its usual indifference.
"My child, rest well. Tomorrow is Aweit’s coronation ceremony; I will take you to watch the Great Sacrifice and the tributes. Afterward, comes your answer."
The elder turned and left, continuing without pause. He was like the chill of the Arctic Circle, moving onward, never halting, marked by austerity and solitude.
On the last night of the seven days, without candles, Xiulote spent a lightless, quiet night. The little green snake coiled peacefully on his chest, ready for tomorrow’s farewell. That night, Xiulote dreamt of creating characters; as he wrote the character for ’divine,’ it turned into the sun and blood.
Early the next day, melodious and joyful singing flowed through the Lake Capital City, like the chanting of divine spirits, announcing the change of human monarchs. Xiulote awoke to the singing. He shook his head with effort and vaguely saw the brightness and crimson of the Capital City.