说“钱”

An Explanation of Qian（钱）

“钱”本是铲形农具，秦以后铲形铸币也称为钱。唐武德四年铸开元通宝钱，十个钱重一两，一个称一钱。一两本重二十四铢，不便计算，就分为十分。十分之一两改称钱后，因“钱”字笔划太多，仍写作“分”，而训读为ｑｉáｎ。

The original meaning of Qian（钱） is a shovellike farm tool. After the Qin Dynasty（秦） shovellike coinage was called Qian（钱）, too. In the 4 th. year of Wu De（武德） of the Tang Dynasty（唐）, the specie Kaiyuan-tongbao（开元通宝） was minted. 10 specie Kaiyuan-tongbao’s（开元通宝） weigh was 1 Liang（两）. 1 specie Kaiyuan-tongbao’s（开元通宝） weigh was 24 Zhu（铢） originally. It wasn’t convenient to count, so 1 Liang（两） is divided into 10 equal parts. After tenth of Liang（两） was called Qian（钱）, still and all it was written Fen（分）, because strokes of Chinese character Qian（钱） were too many, but the Fen（分） was read into the Qian（钱）.