The Calligrapher — Lǐ Lóngjī 李隆基

Tang Emperor Xuanzong who wrote the Shitai Xiaojing in eight-division clerical script (bafen).

Tang calligrapher (), master of 八分/regular script — known for 唐玄宗，《石台孝经》. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

The early form of 它 pictured a snake, 'the other' creeping in the grass, and it served as the neutral third-person until 他 and 她 split off for people. The 'Explaining Graphs' calls it 'a worm.' The graph is a fossil of grammar — the pronoun that was once any creature not us.

Common words & phrases

• 它们 they (objects) · them
• 其它 other things

Read the story behind the character

Pet owners type 它们 for cats and dogs, and forms list 其它 for the remaining options. The character that began as a drawn serpent now marks the non-human and the miscellaneous, the grammatical leftovers a language sorts after people are accounted for.