Pictographs
「Draw the thing, follow its form」
Copy what the eye sees: sun, moon, water, tree — sketches of the world itself.
日月水木
Every character, a seed
From pictographic roots to family trees — walk the road of character-making with Shuowen Jiezi.
The Six Scripts · Six Ways to Make a Character
In the preface to Shuowen Jiezi, Xu Shen summed up six methods behind every Chinese character — a generation algorithm, three thousand years old.
Indicators
「See at a glance, ponder to grasp」
Add a mark to a picture: a stroke at the root makes 本 “root”; at the tip, 末 “tip”.
本末旦刃
Compound Ideas
「Pair the parts, let meaning meet」
Put two characters together for a new idea: a person by a tree is 休 “rest”; sun plus moon is 明 “bright”.
休明采从
Phono-Semantics
「One part means, one part sounds」
The workhorse of the script: a semantic sign plus a sound sign — rivers, trees, feelings, nearly nine-tenths of all characters.
江河松溪
Mutual Glosses
「One class, one meaning, glossing each other」
Characters of the same family that explain one another — 考 and 老, each “old” in the other’s light.
考老
Phonetic Loans
「No character yet? Borrow the sound」
Borrow a homophone for a new word: 莫 “sunset” was borrowed for “not”, so a new 暮 had to be coined.
莫然令长
20 Character Families
Every family grows from one pictographic root. Open one, and you walk a path from concrete image to abstract idea.
The Water Family
From a single drop to the boundless sea
The Chain of Scale · The Chain of Waves
47 字
The Wood Family
From a bud to life everlasting
The Chain of Life
47 字
The Fire Family
From a spark to the torch passed on
The Chain of Intensity
45 字
The Hand Family
Dozens of actions, each with its own character
The Chain of Actions · The Chain of Giving
48 字
The Sun Family
Wherever the sun goes, a character is made
The Chain of Daylight
36 字
The Moon Family
To be incomplete is the moon’s normal state
The Chain of Phases
32 字
The Heart Family
When the heart wanders, the character changes
The Chain of the Mind
36 字
The Speech Family
Between tongue and teeth, the heaviest thing is trust
The Chain of Speaking
46 字
The Jade Family
The finest stone, the gentleman’s virtue
The Chain of Ritual Jade
37 字
The Shell Family
From one seashell to rich and poor
The Chain of Currency
36 字
The Food Family
The people take food as heaven
The Chain of Hunger & Fullness
36 字
The Clothing Family
A garment is a social ladder
The Chain of Garments
37 字
The Fish Family
From a single roe to the leviathan of the northern deep
The Chain of Swimming
41 字
The Bird Family
From a hedge sparrow to the wind-rider Peng
The Chain of Soaring
45 字
The Mountain Family
From one hill to the peak of peaks
The Chain of Forms
38 字
The Stone Family
The bone of the earth, the measure of sincerity
The Chain of Stone Grades
34 字
The Wind Family
The formless thing, arriving from eight directions
The Chain of Eight Winds
28 字
The Horse Family
From a colt to a vow four horses cannot outrun
The Chain of Horse-power
35 字
The Grain Family
The five grains, and a person’s year
The Chain of Five Grains
35 字
The Grass Family
The family wildfire cannot burn out
The Chain of Fragrant Grasses
37 字
The Three-Layer Reading
Literacy is not the goal; awakening is. Every root character is read in three layers.
See the form
Return to the scene of invention — see what the ancients saw: a river, a tree, a setting sun.
Read the logic
Take the parts apart — why are they combined this way? Every component has its reason.
Grasp the wisdom
Let the form lead to philosophy — nature, feeling and conduct, written into the glyph.
The three-layer reading honors the folk tradition of "enlightenment-style" character teaching — not mere literacy, but awakening.
Word Chains
Beyond character families there is another path: lining up the words of one scene — from the foot of a mountain to its summit, from a drizzle to the clear sky after rain.
Cliffs & PrecipicesFrom the foot of the mountain to the summitThe Chain of RainfallFrom a drizzle to the clear sky afterThe Chain of FriendshipFrom a first meeting to a bond of life and deathBoats & ShipsFrom raft to tower-shipFisher, Woodcutter, Farmer, ReaderFour callings, and the way homeThe Chain of RoadsFrom footpath to grand highwayThe Chain of DwellingsFrom thatched hut to palace