Heys guys, One really well-known and really changed from traditional chinese is the wei(we2i) ideogram. We usually can see it in construtions like: 为什么 meaning “Why”, but proper translation is “What reason?”. To understand how 为 is releated to “reason” on that way, first we need to come to back to traditional chinese. 为(wei, wéi, we2i) is represented in tradiotional like an elephant. The fours drops are to represented the elephant’s feets. This ideogram comes from the ancients pictorams where an elephant guided by a human-hand were drawn to represent “to conduct”, “to guide”, “to act”. Above, you can see clearly an elephant. The elephant’s trunk is above hanged by a staff. Below, another imagem but much more closely to nowadays tradiotional. So, essentially the ideogram’s meaning is “to act” and “to conduct” . And this is related to “reason” because to conduct and guide an elephant requires a lot of someone’s hability to do it. 为 is widely used to e...
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