What is the origin of the word nian?

"nian" was originally a knowing word, meaning "grain" above and "people" below. When a person is carrying a bundle of crops, this person is carrying heavy crops on his shoulders, which means "the crops are ripe".

The glyphs in bronze inscriptions are basically the same as those in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, but in Biography, they have become pictophonetic characters with thousands of sounds. "Shuo Wen Jie Zi": "Year is the valley. Out of the grain, there are a thousand sounds. "

The original meaning of "year" is that the grain is ripe, which means that this year is ripe. Therefore, "nian" is not a behemoth, but a unit derived from the annual harvest of crops.

Folk custom of "nian"

From the perspective of legends and stories, Nian is actually a fairy.

According to legend, in ancient China, the fierce monster Xi was wiped out on 1896. On the evening of December 30 of the lunar calendar, it harms people at night. In the Year of the Immortal, Qi Xin worked with people to drive away the "night" by setting off firecrackers. In order to commemorate the achievements of 2008, people call it "New Year's Eve", that is, they drive away the beast Xi. To commemorate 2008, they called the first day of the Lunar New Year New Year.