Sinograph Addenda · Signs
古old · gǔ · old, ancient; antiquity
old
Where it comes from
Ten 十ten · shí · ten; complete over mouth 口mouth · kǒu · mouth; an opening — the Shuowen’s stated account: what has
come down through ten generations of mouths is old. Modern
scholarship suspects the graph began otherwise, but two thousand
years of readers have parsed it exactly this way, and the parse
is the pedagogy. Taught in
the belonging-thread chapter .
How to remember it
Ten mouths told it before it reached yours: old .
In the wild
古old · gǔ · old, ancient; antiquity 之of · zhī · of; him, her, it — the classical linker and object 學learn · xué · to learn, study; learning 者who · zhě · the one who — turns a verb into its doer 為do · wéi · to do, to make; to act as; for 己，今now · jīn · now, the present 之of · zhī · of; him, her, it — the classical linker and object 學learn · xué · to learn, study; learning 者who · zhě · the one who — turns a verb into its doer 為do · wéi · to do, to make; to act as; for 人person · rén · a human being; other people 。gǔ zhī xué zhě wéi jǐ, jīn zhī xué zhě wéi rén "the learners of old learned to better themselves; today's learners learn to impress others" — study as self-improvement against study as showing off. 古old · gǔ · old, ancient; antiquity 之of · zhī · of; him, her, it — the classical linker and object …今now · jīn · now, the present 之of · zhī · of; him, her, it — the classical linker and object …, the tradition's then-versus-now frame
Analects 14.24.
urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:014:32a
All signs Sinograph Addenda