牛的字形

牛 牜⺧ niú

Always think about the character and try to convince yourself that it is what they say it is. What we see here is the horns and the ears and the nose of a cow 牛.

要常常思考汉字，并且试着用自己的头脑思考是否它就是大家所说的那样。在这里我们可以看到牛的角，耳朵以及牛的鼻子。

牛 is the regular character for cow, 牜 is how we write cow when it is a component and ⺧ is a component that only appears in the character 告.

There are several characters that are composed of 牛.

『牛』是表示牛所有的统称，『牜』是当它作偏旁时的写法，而『⺧』则只作为构件出现在『告』这个中。

下面要讲几个由『牛』构成的汉字。

件 jiàn

件 means a unit. It consists of 亻 and 牛. In the old days, most Chinese were farmers 。In America we have the saying: “All you need to be a complete unit is a cow and a wife and a piece of land. The wife is optional”.

『件』表示一小的个单元。它由『亻』和『牛』构成。在古代，大部分的人都是从事农业的。在美国我们有句老话说：“你所需要的一个完整的生活单元只是一头牛，一个妻子还有一块地。妻子可要可不要。”

告 gào

告 means to report. It consists of a cow distorted ⺧ and a 口.

When studying the origin of Chinese characters, we have several dependable sources from which we get REAL ORIGINAL information, like pictures of the characters. One of these sources is from 《甲骨文合集》

We also have various sources, mostly from scholarly journals, called pier reviewed journals from which we can get the latest hopefully well thought out ideas from people who actually look at the original oracle bones. This is an article on the character 告. Like this article 《殷墟甲骨“告”类刻辞考论》

『告』表示报告。它由一个变形后的牛『⺧』以及『口』构成。

当我们在研究汉字来源时，我们有一些可靠的资料来源，从这些文献中，我们可以找到目前最早最为准确的信息，像是一些甲骨文拓片。而我们下面所举的其中一个来源出自《甲骨文合集》。

我们也查考了其它的资料，大部分是一些学刊杂志，这些是属于同行的见解。通过查找这些资料，我们可以获取最新的比较全面的一些观点，而这些作者也都是真实仔细地查考过最初的甲骨文，有一个关于“告”字讨论的文章《殷墟甲骨“告”类刻辞考论》。

Now days we have the word 告诉 which means “to speak”. In the oracle bone characters, 告 was used as a term for a type of sacrifice to the ancestors. We find the following sentence on one of the oracle bones.

In the Shang dynasty we had a number of kings as follows:

大甲 and且（祖）乙 ware both Shang dynasty kings .

告于大甲、且（祖）乙。Means that a cow was offered to the dead kings 太甲 and 祖乙

In ancient times, Chinese worshiped their ancestors, including previous kings. It was believed that the ancestors could help them from the afterlife. People sacrifice the cow 牛 as a way to talk 口 to the ancesters.

In any case it came to mean to tell people something, or report to.

现在我们常说“告诉”，它的含义是向某人诉说。在甲骨文中『告』常常用来表示一种向祖先献祭的重要仪式。我们可以在这片甲骨中（选自《甲骨文合集》），发现这样的文字。

告于大甲、且（祖）乙。

商共有30个王；

—汤、太丁、外丙、中壬、太甲、沃丁、

太庚、小甲、雍己、太戊、中丁、外壬河亶甲、

祖乙、祖辛、沃甲、祖丁、南庚、阳甲、

盘庚 、小辛、小乙、武丁、祖庚、祖甲、

廪辛、康丁、武乙、文丁、帝乙、纣，

大甲和且（祖）乙都是商朝皇帝。

“告于大甲、且（祖）乙”这句话的意思是，将牛作为祭物献给神祖太甲和祖乙。

在古代，中国十分尊崇先祖，尤其是先逝的帝王。他们坚信，这些神祖们的灵会保佑帮助他们。人们献牛做祭祀，作为一种与祖先交流祈福的方式。

现在，它主要被赋予引申义，表示去告知某人或是禀告某事。

牢 láo

牢 means a stockade 宀, for keeping animals 牛, or prisoners 監牢. It means a penned animal, not necessarily a cow.

In the oracle bones, it was also used as a kind of sacrifice. There is a sacrifice called 三牢, which is a sacrifice of a pig, a goat and a cow, three types of penned animals.

As we can see in the following clasic, 太牢 refers to the sacrifice of a cow.

『牢』可以说是围起来的栅栏『宀』，用来关一些牲畜比如牛，或是用来关人的监牢。牢里的动物，不一定仅指牛。

在甲骨文当中，它表示一些将要献祭的动物。“三牢”是古代祭祀时，关起来以准备作为祭品的猪，羊和牛。在下面的这句经典中，也提到了“太牢”这个词，特指用牛作为祭物。

《礼记·王制》：“天子社稷皆太牢，诸侯社稷皆少牢。”注曰：“牛曰太牢，羊曰少牢。

牧 mù

As for 牧, which means to tend to the cows , on the left, we have a hand with an instrument. In this case, it would be a stick. The modern character looks like 攵 pronounced pū. The older character looked like 攴 . It is clear that it is a hand holding a staff. It was used to control the cow 牛.

对于『牧』这个字，意思是放牧，在它的左边，是一只拿着工具的手。根据字义，应该是一只棍子。现代汉字写作『攵』，读作pū。它的更正确更早的字形应该写作『攴pū』。很显然这样看起来更像是一只手握着棍棒，用于管制这只牛。

牟 móu

牟 is the sound a cow makes. If you see a 厶 It usually comes from a mouth. You can see the cow is saying moo.

『牟móu』即牛发出的声音的样子。如果你看到『厶』这个构件，它通常表示口中所发之气。你几乎可以想象得到牛在发出“moo~”的样子。

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来源：汉字叔叔讲故事（公众号）

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