普通话 or The Common Language

Okay, so as a serious student of Mandarin for more than a year now, there are some things about this language that are unbelievably spot on and some things that make you scratch your head and wonder what these people were thinking when they created this hot mess.
For example.  Take 火 (meaning "fire") and 车 (meaning "vehicle") and put them together, and voila!  火车, meaning "train".  Perfectly logical.  Easy to remember.


And then, there's 牛奶.  牛meaning "cow" and 奶 meaning "milk".  Now, the character for milk is actually comprised of "woman" and "fist".  Make of that what you will.  Anyway, 牛奶 means cow milk, exactly what it looks like, and very unforgettable.  


But now let's look at 奶酪.  You know the first part, it means "milk".  The second part, though, is made up of "alcohol" and "each one" and means "fruit jelly" or "sweet nut paste".  Now, that makes no sense.  Even more odd, when you put all that together, you get the character for "cheese".  I have no idea whatsoever how that works.  Personally, I don't think it does.


There are some really cool ones - 妙, the character for wonderful, is comprised of "woman" and "few".  Few women are wonderful.  Easy and true, if you think about Proverbs 31.  


学, the character for "study" is made of "home" and "child", which is absolutely fantastic as a homeschooling mom.  Interestingly enough, there is no homeschooling in China (government schooling all the way here, and no choice in it).  


"Home", for ancient and rather giggly reasons, is made of "roof" and "pig" - 家.


安 means "peaceful" and is "home" and "woman" together.


泡 means "bubbles" and is made of "water" and "bound up together", which is pretty cool.


上帝 means "God" and is "above" and "ruler" together. 


It's really fascinating (to me, probably not to you, sorry) how the origins of some of these characters hold great moral, traditional values.  Of course, some of the others (like 妈妈, "mother" made of "woman" and "horse") are pretty much gibberish.  


Anyway.  I thought of some of this whilst beating my brains out studying.  I have no profound thoughts today.  My apologies.  But this was fun for me.