Chinese Characters for Music and Medicine

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emattson
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Chinese Characters for Music and Medicine

Post by emattson »

Here's an interesting tidbit I learned while visiting Boston's Chinatown during one of their Moon festivals. A man running a booth selling concert tickets told me that the Chinese characters for musical, also translated as laugh, is very similar to medicine. The only difference is the Chinese symbol for plants (probably herbs) is placed on the top. They do appreciate the healing power of music.

You can verify this by using Google translate from English to traditional Chinese.
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Chinese character for medicine
Chinese character for medicine
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Chinese character for musical
Chinese character for musical
Chinese_Character_for_Musical.png (3.98 KiB) Viewed 10405 times
Erik

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Re: Chinese Characters for Music and Medicine

Post by Seizan »

Perhaps this is the Chinese way of saying "Laughter is the best medicine"?"
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gmattson
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Re: Chinese Characters for Music and Medicine

Post by gmattson »

Interesting Eric. . .

Wonder how those 2 lines were chosen to change the definition of the character. Wonder if the horizontal "cross-like" image has its own meaning, or only is an addition that changes another character/s it is attached to?
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Re: Chinese Characters for Music and Medicine

Post by emattson »

gmattson wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 2:35 pm Interesting Erik. . .

Wonder how those 2 lines were chosen to change the definition of the character. Wonder if the horizontal "cross-like" image has its own meaning, or only is an addition that changes another character/s it is attached to?
Played around with Google translate. Leaf, seed (as a noun, germinate, bud), flower, petal, and herb are translated into a series of traditional Chinese characters containing the two horizontal "cross-like" images. The funny part is "root" doesn't use that character even though it is used in medicine.
Erik

“Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.”
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