天 (tin1)

This week’s character is 天 (tin1) which means “sky” or “heaven” (the translation I like the most is “celestial”).

The origins of this character is quite interesting. Since it’s very difficult to depict the sky in a glyph, this character developed from the 大 (daai6/big) character:

• 大 (daai6) is a person (人/jan4) with outstretched arms to indicate something big.

• 天 (tin1) is the same character, with an added stroke at the very top.

Quite a clever way to indicate that the sky is the big expanse above a person!