The Story of 也 – 「也」字的故事

[中文版隨後]

The origins of the character started with that of the snake. The greedy and vicious snake swallowed up everything that came its way.

As the character of “snake” evolved, it continued to illustrate the snake’s belly full of swallowed food but it gradually lost its original meaning.

In classical Chinese, it is mostly used as a particle, such as in 之乎者也.

In the present day, 也 is mostly used as an adverb, such as 也是, meaning “also”, or 也許, meaning “perhaps”.

Although 也 is not a radical itself, it is a common component of many Chinese characters. A few of them are so often used that they are taught in book 1 of Beginning Reader of the Basic Chinese 500 course.

Apart from the character 也 on its own, there are:

起初，人們畫出了蛇。貪婪的毒蛇會吞吃一切。

隨着字形的進化演變，蛇的大肚子保留着，可是本來的意思消失了。

在古文中，「也」是助詞，例如：之乎者也。

在現代漢語中，「也」一般是副詞。例如：也是、也許。

「也」字雖然本身不是部首，但卻是一個很常見的部件，和不同的部首都能組合成字。一部份的字還十分常用，因此在基礎漢字500的啟蒙級第一冊就教了。

「也」字除了它本身之外，短片中還介紹了幾個常見的組合漢字。