Sinographs 101 · Chapter 06

Knowing and walking

An arrow first — watch what it is for:

Sign	Key	Says	Means	How to see it
矢	arrow	shǐ	arrow	head, shaft, and fletching in five strokes
知	know	zhī	to know, to understand	arrow beside mouth: the word that flies straight — the arrow hums the sound
而	and-then	ér	and, and then; but	a drawing of a beard, borrowed forever for the little joining word
行	walk	xíng	to walk, to go; to practice	a crossroads seen from above — where walking happens
言	speech	yán	speech, words; to speak	your mouth under rising lines — sound on its way out

矢 is pinned far ahead of its own frequency for one reason: 知 is built on it, and this course never shows you a compound before you own its parts. 而 is the chapter’s borrowed word — a beard, of all things, lent to the busiest clause-joiner in the language (rank five of the whole corpus). And 言 puts your 口 to work as a meaning-part: the mouth with sound rising out of it, the seed of the entire talking family of characters.

The two moves of the chapter side by side: 知 assembled from taught parts, 而 borrowed whole — the beard's meaning gone, its sound doing grammar.

The unrecognized gentleman

The first page of the Analects holds three sayings; here is the third, one box from open:

人不知而不▢。rén bù zhī ér bù yùn"to go unrecognized — and not resent it" — person · not · know · and-then · not · (resent): five of six characters yours, and the saying continues "…is that not a gentleman?"

Analects 1.1. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:001:1a · license: attribution.

Watch 而 work: it joins “others do not know him” to “he does not resent it” with a single stroke of grammar — and-yet. Half of classical prose is clauses hinged on exactly this character.

Walking, standing, knowing

Three short sayings, all nearly or fully open:

三人行。sān rén xíng"three people walking" — the saying you have carried since chapter 02, its verb finally lit; the teacher among them arrives next chapter

三十而▢。sān shí ér lì"at thirty, I stood" — the Master's life told in decades, hinged on your 而; "stood" means stood on his own: formed, settled, no longer holding anyone's hand — the word the tradition still uses for turning thirty

不知▢不知。bù zhī wéi bù zhī"when you do not know a thing — admit you do not know it" — half of the Master's advice about facing your own ignorance honestly; four of five characters yours, and the whole saying opens two chapters on

Line 1: Analects 7.22 · urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:007:26a. Line 2: Analects 2.4, as quoted in the Ming commentary Sishu liushu · urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0052:003:6b. Line 3: Analects 2.17 · urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:002:18a. All license: attribution.

And 言 goes to work at once in the word the tradition uses for its own proverbs: 有言, yǒu yán — “there is a saying.” When a classical author writes 有言, a quotation is coming; you now read the signpost. The character itself waits one more chapter for its starring line — the most famous sentence ever written about getting names right.

Where this goes

Forty characters, 16 percent of everything. Next: the two most famous borrowed pictures in the script — a hand leading an elephant, and a dancer who lost her dance — plus the heart, the self, and the verb “to grow.”