Chinese Characters and Noah’s Ark

In a previous article, we examined the Chinese Character Truths theory and its popular application to the character 福 Fú. In this article, we examine another claim made by Chinese Character Truths theorists regarding the Chinese character 船 chuán:

Interestingly, the Chinese character for boat (船) is made up of three elements: eight (八), persons (口), and vessel (舟). This is a clear reference to Noah’s Ark! It is undeniable that the ancient Chinese knew about the story of Noah’s Ark, and created the Chinese character for “boat” based on it.

Again, notice how this claim is based on the assumption that the current Chinese character for “boat”, 船 chuán, was known to or invented by the ancient Chinese people. In reality, the current 船 chuán character was completely unknown to the earliest users of Chinese characters, since they would have been using Oracle Bone Script (甲骨文).

Here is how the original 船 chuán character was written:

Notice that the original 船 chuán character did not even contain the elements which are in the right part of the current 船 chuán character. This means that the ancient Chinese people did not perceive that the original 船 chuán character contained elements which signified “eight” and “persons”.

The elements on the right part of the character were added later on in Chinese history, in Bronze Script (金文):

The purpose of these new elements in the right part of the 船 chuán character is explained in the following entry in a reference book:

甲骨文舟与船同为一字。象长条船之形。 《说文》注： “舟也。从舟，铅省声。”船即舟。古人称舟，函谷关以西称船。船为水上之常用交通工具。 — 《解码甲骨文》, p. 23.

In Oracle Bone Script, the words 舟 zhōu and 船 chuán were written with the same character. Its shape depicts a long boat [船]. Shuōwén notes: “[The character 船 chuán] signifies ‘vessel’ [舟], and originates from the character 舟 zhōu. Its main component is the character 舟 zhōu. Its phonetic component is the character [鉛] without its radical.” 船 chuán is similar to 舟 zhōu. The ancient people called it 舟 zhōu. The people West of Hangu Pass called it 船 chuán. A boat [船] on water was a commonly used mode of transport. — Explanations of Oracle Bone Script Characters, p. 23.

The entry notes that according to Shuōwén Jiězì, an ancient Chinese dictionary, the phonetic component of the 船 chuán character is “the character [鉛] without its radical”. This means that the right part of the 船 chuán character was actually added as a phonetic component, to indicate how the character was pronounced historically. Indeed, this same phonetic component is found in other characters which were historically pronounced similarly:

Conclusion

Therefore, contrary to the Chinese Character Truths theory, the original 船 chuán character did not contain elements which signified “eight” and “persons”. Later on, the right part was added to the 船 chuán character as its phonetic component, and not because its elements signified “eight” and “persons” respectively.

{Special thanks to Jeremiah Chua Yi Yin for transcribing and translating the entry from the reference book.}