朋 | 倗

We have successfully interpreted the meaning of the sentence: “学而时习之，不亦悦乎？” its next sentence is “有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？” In our following learning journey, we will prepare ourselves to understand it properly.

Our character today is 朋. What does it mean by grouping two 月 together? We have learnt that 月 can represent either moon or meat when it is used as Chinese radical. You can review the related posts as below:
1. 月: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2012/02/learn-one-chinese-character-day_17.html
2. 肉: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2015/12/learn-one-chinese-character-day_28.html
3. 背: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2015/12/learn-one-chinese-character-day_31.html

So does 朋 means a lot of meat or kind of meaning “bright” like 明? After we see its Oracle scripts, it will be clear that 朋 has nothing related to 月 or 肉, as shown below:

evolution history of 朋

We can see from its Oracle script  of 朋 that it looks actually like a bunch of something stringed together. In one of Chinese classic literature《诗经》, there is a sentence called: “既见君子,锡我百朋”, which is translated into modern Chinese as: After visiting the officer, he rewarded me one hundred of 朋. It is a clear proof that 朋 is something related to currency. In ancient China, Chinese people started their currency with beautiful 贝. Details related to 贝 can be found here: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2016/05/learn-one-chinese-character-day_9.html

With above understanding, below image is a good representation what 朋 actually is:

Now we reach to the conclusion that 朋 is the drawing of two group of 贝 stringed together.

From the concept of “group” coming from the original representation of 朋, 朋 thus is used to mean grouping of people, for example 朋党.

And looking at the , it does not mean group of people only, it means a group of people who share the same value and standard, like your friends. for example 朋友.

Again from , it is a drawing of two strings of 贝, tied in sequence, parallel to each other, hang from top down. It is further evolved to mean students (which is a group of people) study under a same teacher, and of course, they share the same values and standards. That is why ancient Chinese says “同处师门曰朋”.

From the series related to Oracle script , we can easily tell why 倗 is a variant of 朋.

That is all for 朋, let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 朋 inside:

有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？