Well hi all, we all are familiar with the words 來(lai2, to come) & 麥(mai4, wheat). However do you all know that they are actualli the OPPOSITE of each other originally and were MIXED UP & SWITCHED.
I got this from a dictionary that gives e origins of Chinese chracter.
Take a good look at the 2 character, don't u think e 1st word look lik a wheat plant? and the 2nd word with the "久“ bottem actualli represents leg in the ancient times!! What does the wheat got to do with leg? Therefore e words were mixed up.
So 來 is 麥
& 麥 is 來.
So y did it turn out this way? Actualli e dict says that
“甲骨文的字形， 上部是“來“字， 表示讀音（與“麥“韻母相同）， 下部是一只腳趾朝下的腳（倒“止“）， 表示走來。 所以“麥”的本意是“來”，而“來”的本意是“麥”，正好相反。在甲骨卜辭中使用“麥”字較少， 而使用“來”字極多，所以就發生了互換現象，並一直沿習下來不以爲意了。“
So basically, as e 麥 was rarely used in the past and 來 was used greatly, as in e ancient agricultural society, people were more concerned with wheat then whether u r coming or not...haha, but as they progresses, "coming" became more important so to speak, thus resulting in a switch during the transcription. Interesting yea? especially when we are using these words daily....
Well this is just one, i have one more example that is a myth, however its very logical & cute....and its e battle between
射(she4, to shoot) ＆矮(ai3, dwarf) 。
Well, for the 射，its made up of身(shen1, body) & 寸(cun4, inch) , so if your body is one inch tall, u got to be SHORT!!
As for 矮, the 矢(shi4, arrow!) has more business with shooting, thus leading some to think whether the words were swapped.
Haha, the answer is a straight no as in e dict, the origins of the words were congruent with there meaning, thus its no mistake….
Yuppy, thanx for reading n pls share some other cute examples here too =p
Some interesting words tt were mixed up for thousands of yrs
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Dylan Sung
There are around 4000 jiaguwen/oracle bone/shell and bone inscriptional characters. A great many of these are still unknown as to their meaning or pronunciation, and around 1300 or so have meanings that are known.
The earliest form of characters were sometimes borrowed for other meanings, for example wind 風 and phoenix 鳳 are the same characters ( 鳳 ) in the shell and bone inscriptions. This is because they are homophones. The characters we are using in this thread and most modern Chinese computing are later creations, and they will date mostly from the Han Dynasty. The Shang, however, are about a millenia and a half before that. Some characters which come down to us mean that there is an unbroken tradition since the Shang, however, some characters were newer, made after the Shang.
There are also graphical changes throughout the entire corpus of Shell and bone characters, meaning that even in the couple of hundred years of their use on the material which has been found, they continued to evolve.
Moreover, succeeding the Shang, we find a brief use of shell and bone oracle inscriptions in the Zhou also. However, they move over to other forms of divinations, and animal bones/shells were given up quite early into their new dynasty.
Intervening and spanning these two dynasties are the bronze inscriptional script, and there are some characters found on very early Zhou bronzes which have direct counterparts with late Shang characters inscriptions. OFten there are completely different graphs used altogether. In trying to guess the characters on Shell and bone Characters, these bronzes have been helpful sometimes, but they are still fairly rare objects, unearthed throughout modern China.
Those characters gradually stylised until establishment of the greater seal standard, and later on, the lesser seal characters in the Qin dynasty. However, even during the end of the Qin, the diversity of forms in the written character has been found from inscriptions found on armour and weaponry, coins and bamboo strip books, each of which are regionally distinct, so the unification of the writing system by the Qin Emperor, provides the date to which all modern forms derive.
The earliest form of characters were sometimes borrowed for other meanings, for example wind 風 and phoenix 鳳 are the same characters ( 鳳 ) in the shell and bone inscriptions. This is because they are homophones. The characters we are using in this thread and most modern Chinese computing are later creations, and they will date mostly from the Han Dynasty. The Shang, however, are about a millenia and a half before that. Some characters which come down to us mean that there is an unbroken tradition since the Shang, however, some characters were newer, made after the Shang.
There are also graphical changes throughout the entire corpus of Shell and bone characters, meaning that even in the couple of hundred years of their use on the material which has been found, they continued to evolve.
Moreover, succeeding the Shang, we find a brief use of shell and bone oracle inscriptions in the Zhou also. However, they move over to other forms of divinations, and animal bones/shells were given up quite early into their new dynasty.
Intervening and spanning these two dynasties are the bronze inscriptional script, and there are some characters found on very early Zhou bronzes which have direct counterparts with late Shang characters inscriptions. OFten there are completely different graphs used altogether. In trying to guess the characters on Shell and bone Characters, these bronzes have been helpful sometimes, but they are still fairly rare objects, unearthed throughout modern China.
Those characters gradually stylised until establishment of the greater seal standard, and later on, the lesser seal characters in the Qin dynasty. However, even during the end of the Qin, the diversity of forms in the written character has been found from inscriptions found on armour and weaponry, coins and bamboo strip books, each of which are regionally distinct, so the unification of the writing system by the Qin Emperor, provides the date to which all modern forms derive.