wén

language

surname Wen; culture; writing; formal; literary; gentle; (old) classifier for coins; Kangxi radical 67

a picture of 文 → a chest marked with tattoos, meaning writing

The ancient glyph showed a person with markings on their chest — tattoos as the earliest form of symbolic inscription. From that image of marks on the body, 文 expanded to cover all written marks, language, and culture.

+

Words with 文

达文西

dá wén xī

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian Renaissance painter (Tw)

达尔文

dá ěr wén

Charles Darwin (1809–1882), British biologist, author of "On the Origin of Species" 物種起源|物种起源[Wu4 zhong3 Qi3 yuan2]

达尔文主义

dá ěr wén zhǔ yì

Darwinism

达尔文学说

dá ěr wén xué shuō

Darwinism

达尔文港

dá ěr wén gǎng

Port Darwin (the port of Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia)

酒桌文化

jiǔ zhuō wén huà

drinking culture

释文

shì wén

interpreting words

重文

chóng wén

repetitious passage

重文轻武

zhòng wén qīng wǔ

to value letters and belittle arms (idiom); to stress civil matters and neglect the military

金文

jīn wén

inscription in bronze

铭文

míng wén

inscription

钟鼎文

zhōng dǐng wén

bell-cauldron script

More characters with 亠