E! its a crocodile!
July 16th 2008 09:01
E! it's a Crocodile!
No Seriously Folks this ideogram stands for Crocodile or Alligator and is spellt E in Pinyin!
E Croc!
E tone 4 in Mandarin is GAKU and Wani in Japanese and Ngok 6 in Cantonese.
I love this character. Officially it can be broken down into two parts. The radical on tee left side which means fish and is also used to indicate the character shows an aquatic connection. The sign on the right the phonetic part of the character is another example of the quirky sense of humor of some ancient Chinese scribe. Most reference books say it's a combination of jade or ruler plus noise and represents the fear awe reverence and clamour that greets a ruler. Royalty is fearsome? But wait so also are crocodiles and alligators!
One of the two ( I cant remember off hand which ) was found in ancient rivers although endangered today!
I dont know what E looks like in small seal form but to me the modern shape looks like a patch of crocodile scales?
Some other later scribe also had a sense of irony when they created the abbreviated form of this character. Have a close look at the right side of the these two modern variants.
E croc variants
Does anyone else see two big eyes a line representing water and the squiggly tail of a croc or gator whaterver the official text book description is?
Enjoy!
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