Chinese Characters

象

PINYIN

xiàng

Main meanings:

①elephant.

②appearance.

③image.

④imitate.

HSK - 4

STROKES - 11

RADICAL -豕

Elements: pig 豕 + trunk. Phonetic series: 象

A pictogram of an elephant, like a pig 豕, both have four legs, a head and tail, but the elephant’s trunk is visible in the upper part of the character. It will be better recognized turning the image 90 degrees.

Main Words in HSK:

大象 dàxiàng elephant.
现象 xiànxiàng – appearance.
象征 xiàngzhēng symbolize; signify.
象棋 xiàngqí Chinese chess.

Discussion and sources
I think there is about a complete agreement that this character was the image of an elephant. Old pictograms were images primitive drawings of elephants, gradually simplified along the time. Later was loan to appearance, image, elephant is the bigger image of the terrestrial animals.

Image from nicubunu acquired from OCAL (Website). http://www.freestockphotos.biz/stockphoto/15956

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