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Motivation

While writing my recent meta question, I've cited Dr. Gavin Chiu (趙善軒)'s article to explain the character '進' and its simplified character '井'. However, a user points out that the linked article is not real academic material, and that such explanation is invalid.

Question

How do the glyphs '⻌' and '隹' come up together to bring the meaning of '進'?

My attempt

The bone script (甲骨文) for '進' reads 進甲骨文.

In Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字), there's simply a one-line explanation.

登也。从辵。閵省聲。

It's not hard to identify the left glyph in the ancient writing 說文解字 in 說文解字 as '辵', but I can't understand the role of '登' in 說文解字's explanation for '進'. The right glyph '隹' clearly represents a bird enter image description here.

Source of images for ancient scripts: The Complete Collection of Ancient and Modern Characters (古今文字集成)

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2
  • 1
    登 means to ascend/mount in Chinese. Its connection to bird and motion stands to reason.
    – Michaelyus
    Jun 17, 2019 at 13:24
  • 1
    The 登 there is just to say that it has (had) the same meaning of 進 back then. Not all characters are meaning-based, many of them are sound-based, and that's what the Shuowen is trying to tell you: from an abbreviation of 閵 (lin), that is, take the 門 off, you get 隹 as a sound component. But either way, Shuowen is not made under scientific criteria at all, and you should not trust it. And I don't have time right now to look any further, and probably droooze will come soon and give you the right explanation. ;)
    – Enrico Brasil
    Jun 17, 2019 at 22:03

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

商
甲
⿱隹止
京津4001
合集32535
隸定
⿱隹止

　

「進」 was originally constructed from semantic 「隹」 (picture of a bird) and semantic 「止」 (picture of a foot > motion), indicating the flying motion of a bird, which infers the meaning forward, advance (birds cannot fly backwards). Later on, 「彳」 (left half of 「行」, picture of a road intersection > roads, movement, path) was added to form the equivalent semantic component 「辵・⻍」 (walking, motion).

西周
金
進
𥃝圜器
集成10360戰國・楚
簡・帛
進
帛乙8.5
長沙子彈庫東漢
隸
進
白石神君碑
　
楷
進

　

Note, 「辵」 is the full form of 「⻍」. As stated earlier, 「辵」 is made up from a merger between 「彳」 and 「止」, shown again via 「過」 below.

西周
金
過
過伯簋
集成3907戰國・楚
簡・帛
過
語叢3
郭店楚簡秦
簡
過
效律9
睡虎地秦簡東漢
隸
過
華山廟碑
　
楷
過

　

References:

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2
  • Non-linguistic nitpick: The birds found in China cannot fly backwards; hummingbirds on the other hand...
    – Michaelyus
    Jun 20, 2019 at 11:12
  • @Michaelyus yes, but that is a side-effect of them being able to hover rather than fly in general :) Hummingbirds are unique in that respect.
    – dROOOze
    Jun 20, 2019 at 11:13

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