Explore each form from the oldest known stage to today.
The character 溝 (ditch, canal) evolved from ancient pictographs depicting water channels. Its earliest forms in oracle bone script showed flowing water between two boundaries. The character combines the water radical (氵) with 冓, which originally represented two fish meeting or intersecting paths, suggesting the convergence of water flows. Over centuries, it standardized during the Qin dynasty clerical script reforms into its modern form, maintaining the semantic meaning of man-made watercourses for irrigation and drainage. Arrived in Japan: The character 溝 likely arrived in Japan during the 5th-6th centuries CE along with the broader introduction of Chinese writing systems, possibly through Buddhist texts and Korean scribes. It appears in early Japanese documents like the 8th-century Man'yōshū poetry collection, indicating it was well-established in Japanese writing by the Nara period (710-794 CE).