ha in Cangjie

ha means leaf in Japanese.

Cangjie (Kanji in Japanese) is a writing system, logograph, invented in China between 4667-4596 BCE.

Cangjie is the name of a historian, who was tasked with recording significant events, when serving at the court of the Yellow Emperor. To do this he needed a tool to capture information and communicate.

Before he started to try and solve this problem, Cangjie spent lots of time in nature. Being in a natural environment allowed him to calm his mind and to think on how to embark on this very important task.

Thanks to his curious observation of the landscape, the animals, the stars, and the elements, Cangjie noticed, that shapes often repeat, like patterns. He discovered that each object has specific characteristics, which help to distinguish one from another.

Based on this reflection, Cangjie created pictorial scripts, graphic representations of the objects he saw in the real world. These drawings later became the first official Chinese language.

The word ha 葉 has its roots in Cangjie and is derived from the observation of nature.

Looking more closely at the initial shape of the Cangjie for ha, we could easily imagine how it resembles a little, three leaved branch.

This was a beautiful reflection for us on how the natural environment influenced the creation of written language.

This understanding was also the main inspiration for creating the logo for Hastate Design.