Sinograph Addenda · Signs

year

Name	year
Reads	nián
Means	year; harvest
Taught in	08 · Already, and at last

Where it comes from

The old graphs show a person with grain bundled on their back — the harvest coming home. One harvest, one year: the count of years is the count of crops, and the strokes wore smooth into today’s form long after the picture faded. Taught in the already chapter.

How to remember it

The strokes are a figure with the harvest bundled on its back: one crop carried home, one year on the count.

In the wild

君子萬年。jūn zǐ wàn nián"ten thousand years to our lord!" — every character yours: the Odes' toast at the feast, myriad and year side by side

Odes, "Look at the Luo" (瞻彼洛矣). urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1c0001:021:37a · license: attribution.