篇

Étymologie et composants

The Chinese character 篇 (piān) is composed of two parts: 扁 (biǎn) and 言 (yán). 扁 originally meant "flat" or "thin", and was used to describe objects such as tablets or boards. 言, on the other hand, means "speech" or "language". When combined, 篇 can be understood as a "flat surface on which words are written", hence its meaning as "chapter" or "section".In ancient China, writing was done on bamboo or wooden slips, which were then bound together into a book. Each slip was called a 篇, and the entire book was referred to as a 冊 (cè). Over time, the term 篇 came to be used more broadly to refer to any section or division of a written work, regardless of its length or format.Today, 篇 is still commonly used in Chinese to refer to chapters or sections of books, articles, or other written works. It can also be used in a more general sense to mean "piece" or "article", as in the phrase 一篇報道 (yī piān bàodào, "a news article").