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Language and culture shape cognition—this is a classic proposition in linguistics, often associated with the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.

However, rather than discussing this hypothesis directly, I would like to briefly introduce the cultural significance of Chinese characters and the associative mode of thinking they foster

Take a simple example from everyday life.

In a weather forecast, the icon for “cloudy” usually consists of a sun partially covered by a cloud.

If we were to represent this image as a Chinese character, it would be this one: 昙.

In this character, sun is represented by 日, and cloud by 云; when combined, they form 昙.

At first glance, it seems reasonable to interpret 昙 simply as meaning “cloudy.”

However, Chinese characters are not only visually motivated by their historical formation; they also carry strong cultural associations.

In contemporary usage, 昙 most commonly appears in one specific context—when referring to a flower called Epiphyllum oxypetalum, known in Chinese as 昙花 (literally, “昙 flower”).

This flower is famous for its extremely short blooming period and for flowering only at night.

Because this characteristic is widely known, the character 昙 gradually came to be used metaphorically to mean “short-lived” or “ephemeral.”

This semantic shift illustrates the cultural meaning embedded in Chinese characters.

It shows how characters can acquire meanings that go beyond their original descriptive function.

The evolution of 昙 from “cloudy” to “transient” is itself a process through which collective thinking and cultural memory become rooted in the writing system.

Therefore, 昙 is not merely a symbol describing a natural phenomenon; it is a linguistic unit that carries accumulated cultural experience.

Its meaning evolved from a visually grounded description of weather conditions to a symbolic expression of transience and impermanence.

Importantly, this semantic change did not arise from logical deduction, but from long-term, repeated cultural usage.

Through this process, natural phenomena, botanical characteristics, and human emotional experience were compressed and fixed within a single character.

This demonstrates that Chinese characters are not used solely to denote objective objects;

Rather, through use, they continuously absorb collective memory and cultural associations, forming a highly interconnected network of meanings.

When Chinese readers encounter the character 昙, the associations it evokes are not the result of explicit instruction, but of long-shared cultural cognitive habits.

Under this meaning-construction mechanism, users of Chinese tend to understand concepts through association, metaphor, and holistic context, rather than relying on a single, fixed definition.

The cultural meaning of Chinese characters is not something added externally to the language; it is embedded within the characters themselves, continuously shaping patterns of understanding and cognitive pathways.

This perspective aligns closely with research in cognitive linguistics on Chinese semantics and cultural models.

For example, Yu (2009) argues that Chinese vocabulary and writing systems rely heavily on cultural metaphors and shared experience, with meanings emerging from long-accumulated cultural cognitive frameworks rather than simple referential relationships.

This provides theoretical support for the semantic evolution of 昙.