One of the methods to learn and remember characters is to use radicals. Let’s look at the beginning of life.
The first spellings of sì 巳 make us think of a head with a limbless body, like a fetus
.
Thus, characters with 巳 concerning the child will take shape, like carrying or wrapping a child, bāo 包.
The ancient spelling:
The character can make you think of a mother wrapping a child bending over.
包 by extension means to wrap, contain, include and associated with other characters to form words of the same lexical field as package, 包裹, bāoguǒ and packaging, 包装, bāozhuāng.
Please note: One of the meanings of 巳 is an old time, 9 to 11, was that the best time to feed the child?
See other articles on Chinese language here.
21 June 2020