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The character 鼻 (nose) evolved from ancient pictographs depicting a nose. In oracle bone script, it originally showed a human nose with ventilation holes. The character is composed of 自 (self) at the top, which itself was originally a pictograph of a nose, and 畀 (to give) at the bottom, which was added later for phonetic reasons. Interestingly, 自 (nose) came to mean 'self' because people would point to their nose when referring to themselves. Thus 鼻 represents both the physical nose and by extension the concept of origin or beginning, as seen in words like 鼻祖 (founder, originator). Arrived in Japan: The character 鼻 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 scholars. It was incorporated into the Japanese writing system as a kanji character, reading as 'hana' for the native Japanese reading and 'bi' for the Sino-Japanese reading.