The Chinese Character, an Interpretable Chinese Culture

"She" (舌) is a pictographic character originally written like “ ” in the oracle bone inscriptions, the upper part respresenting the throat and the lower part the tongue. To make writing easier, the upper part of the character was later replaced by a horizontal stroke and the character was written as “”. The character then evolved into “”. This form was basically retained in the regular script developed later on. The original meaning of this character was the movable organ in the mouth used for tasting, moving food around and producing speech. It also had the extended meanings of "verbal debate" and "things like the tongue". 

The tongue is also called "the root of the soul" and "the gate to the heart". Practice shows that changes of tongue conditions are an objective reflection of a person’s illness. Tongue diagnosis involves tongue proper and tongue coating. Tongue proper is also known as tongue body, which is the chorioid tela of the tongue muscles. Tongue coating is a grayish covering on the tongue. Examining tongue body and tongue coating is an important content in traditional Chinese diagnosis.