刀（dāo）Knife - The Evolution of Chinese Character

Today I want to share with you one Chinese character, and that character is ”刀”. 

刀 means knife. In the pre-Qin period, roughly the time before 221 B.C., the knife served as a hunting tool and weapon. This is a knife from the Warring States Period (戰國時期，475-221 BC)  The earliest known forms of 刀 come from the Shang dynasty (商朝，16th-11th century BC) You can observe that in the pre-Qin period, the structure of characters was diverse. This means that one character had more than one writing way.

Let’s see this picture. This is the handle of a knife. This is the blade and this is the cutting edge. How did this picture become the character 刀? like that. We can see the character 刀 is a pictogram（象形字） a word that physically resembles the object they represent. 

How do you think ancient Chinese people represented the term “cutting edge”? Like the edge of a knife or blade. In Chinese, there are six categories（六書）that classify all characters. One of them is pictograms, which I have introduced in a previous video. Another category is ideograms (指事字), which I will share with you today. If we want to talk about the cutting edge of a knife, we just need to add a simple stroke to the knife character. Like this. Then the character 刀 become 刃, which means the cutting edge of a knife. 刃 is a simple ideogram, it expresses an abstract idea through an iconic form. Some ideograms are created from the modification of pictographic characters.

Now let’s see the evolution of 刀. This is the Oracle Bone Script（甲骨文） form from the Shang Dynasty. This is the Bronze Script（金文） form from the late Shang Dynasty. Here We have the Small Seal Script（小篆） form taken from the famous Han Dynasty Dictionary, 說文解字. Next we have the Clerical Script（隸書） form from the Qin Dynasty and also from the Western Han Dynasty. Finally, 刀 in the Regular Script（楷書）. In the evolution of 刀, we can observe that the handle is gradually shortened. 

Here is the evolution of 刃. The Oracle Bone Script form from the Shang Dynasty. The Bronze Script form from the Warring States Period. The Small Seal Script form taken from 說文解字. The Clerical Script form from the Qin Dynasty. And finally, 刃 in the Regular Script.

Let’s see how to write 刀. Get your pens and papers ready. Let’s start! The first step is the upper part, make a stroke from left to right, then turn and go down, and finally create a small hook. The second stroke starts from here and goes down in a curve. Notice that there are only two strokes in this character and not three. If you want to write 刃, just add the third stoke on here. Let’s see that again at normal speed.This is 刀. This is 刃.