The Calligrapher — Yán Zhēnqīng 颜真卿

Tang master of robust regular script; co-creator of the enduring 'Yan style'.

Tang calligrapher (709–784), master of regular script/running script — the Tang moral paragon whose upright, muscular regular script became the model of Chinese integrity in writing. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

In the classical tradition: 喇 pairs 口 with 剌 and appears in 喇叭, horn and loudspeaker, and 喇嘛, lama — a Tibetan Buddhist teacher whose name the character borrowed phonetically. A 喇叭 blasted orders in the old army camps and called villagers to market. 哈喇, rancid, described spoiled oil. The character is a mouth opened wide for loud sound or for a foreign, sacred word carried in on the winds from the plateau.

Common words & phrases

• 喇叭 horn · loudspeaker · trumpet
• 喇嘛 lama
• 哈喇 rancid · spoiled

Read the story behind the character

In the modern world: A vendor's 喇叭 — horn, loudspeaker — blares sale prices in the street, and a car 喇叭 honks in the jam. The 喇嘛, lama, prays at the Tibetan temple on your travel vlog, while 哈喇, rancid, oil smells off in the old wok. You blow a 喇叭 at the birthday party; 喇 is the loud, borrowed sound of commerce, faith, and a kitchen gone bad.

Why this character belongs on skin

Some characters exist almost purely as sound, and 喇 is one of them—the mouth radical doing exactly what it says, a syllable shaped like a trumpet call. It sounds in 喇叭, the horn and the trumpet: the brass that wakes the festival, the cavalry signal across the valley, the city bus's blunt opinion. It sounds again in 呼喇喇, the rush of wind through a field, and in 唢呐's cousin the horn band leading a wedding down a dusty road, loud enough for the whole village to share the joy. Tibet gave it another resonance: 喇嘛, the lama, the teacher whose voice is calm where the trumpet is bright. Sound, in every case, arriving from a mouth into open air. There is something freeing about a character that refuses to mean much and simply rings. Wear 喇 as permission to be loud occasionally—to announce yourself, blast the horn, take the curve of the road at full voice.