Learn one Chinese Character a day - "众"

Last time we have learned "人", today we will look at "众". Look carefully, "众" is composed by three "人".

recall that three can mean a lot in Chinese language. three "人" which is "众" means a lot of people. And as you already learn original "人" is silhouette of a farmer, "众" has a more primitive meaning as a group of labour workers.

Learn one Chinese Character a day - "众"

Let us now see the evolutionary history of "众", image get from http://www.vividict.com/ 

Learn one Chinese Character a day - "众"

 Oracle has two different writings:  or  lower part of both characters are three person. upper part, which you have not learnt yet,  means mouth,  means sun. so in Oracle writing,  means a group of people work under commands or  means a group of people work under sun. 

When this Chinese character evolved to Seal script,   it is a group of people work under (Chinese Character - eye), which means under watching or monitoring.  

 Official script , has changed the lower part from  to for simplifying the writing. 

as modern Chinese characters, there are two different systems - Traditional Chinese & Simplified Chinese.

Traditional Chinese system still use "眾" while Simplified Chinese system uses "众"

And look at Regular script in the evolutionary history, Chinese Ancestors already started to use "众". 

As usual, let us enjoy a Chinese Calligraphy with   "眾" or "众" inside.

Learn one Chinese Character a day - "众"

Since we already get accessed to  ,and , in our following lessons, we will focus on these three characters.