The ancient Chinese incorporated their observations and awareness of nature into the shapes of Chinese characters.

Learn Chinese: 月(yue: “the moon”)

The shape of this character is just like the meniscus. There is an ancient Chinese story named “Chang’e Flies to the Moon”. Chang’e is the wife of Houyi. She consumed the medicine of immortality and flew to the moon, where she becomes a goddess and lived in a lunar palace. If we put “日”(ri, “the sun”) and “月” together, then we get the character “明”, which is pronounced as “ming” and it means “bright”. As there has sun and moon, so the world is bright.

The ancient people recorded that the lunar cycle is approximately 29-30 days. Thus, they used “月” to represent this period, namely a month. Most of the Chinese characters formed by using “月” are related to “moon” or “light”. For example, the word “朝” (zhao), the left-hand side of the character consists of “草” (cao, “grass”) at the top and bottom and “日” in the middle. The right side is “月”. This character depicts the sun rising above a field of grass before the moon has set. Therefore, it means “the early morning”.