The Meaning of the Chinese Character for Horse

Horses are a big part of Chinese culture. Countless ancient Chinese paintings and sculptures are of horses due to the animals importance in military excursions as well as being one of the 12 animal zodiac signs.   The word for horse also plays a large role in the Chinese language. From its use as a radical to sounding out Western names in phonetic translations, the Chinese character for the horse has a wide range of use. Learn how to write and say horse in Chinese. You will be  surprised by  how learning this simple word can help you recognize other Chinese characters and phrases with more ease.   Character Evolution The Chinese character for the horse  used today derives from a pictograph of a rearing horse with its front legs in the air and its mane flowing in the wind. Using your imagination, you can still recognize the shape of a horse when looking at the traditional character for horse,  Ã© ¦ ¬.   The horizontal strokes that make up the upper half of the character look like the horses mane. The four shorter strokes at the bottom represent four legs. And the stroke on the lower right that looks like a  hook is supposed to be the horses tail. However, the simplified form replaced the four legs with a single stroke and removed the horizontal lines on the top. In its simplified version, the character for a horse  in Chinese looks like  Ã© © ¬. Radical Chinese radicals are the part of a character that categorizes words based on definition or pronunciation. The character for horse, é ¦ ¬/é © ¬ ( mÇŽ), can also be used as a radical. The horse radical is used in more complex characters, many of which are used to describe characteristics of horses. As an example, here is a short list of characters that contain the horse radical: é ¨ µ - yuà ¡n - chestnut horse with white belly é ¨ ® / é ª  - lià º - bay horse with black mane é ¨ £ - zÃ… ng - bristles; horses mane é ¨â€˜ - fÄ“i - horse with yellow back é § ¿ / é ª  - jà ¹n - spirited horse é § ¹ - mà ¡ng - black horse with a white face é § ± / é ªâ€  - luà ² - camel é §â€ / é © µ - zÇŽng - powerful horse Mandarin Vocabulary With MÇŽ Besides vocabulary related to horses, é ¦ ¬/é © ¬ (mÇŽ) is commonly used as a phonetic in foreign names, some of which are included in this table. Traditional Characters Simplified Characters Pinyin English l b m Alabama o k l h m Oklahoma B h m the Bahamas B n m Panama bn m zebra d m sh g Damascus lu m Rome m d ji s ji Madagascar m li x y Malaysia m t ti horseshoe x m l y shn the Himalayas Y m sn Amazon