Head high, mane flying, legs mid-gallop: the oracle-bone horse is a portrait in motion, one of the liveliest drawings on the bones. The simplified 马 kept the arched neck and the running legs. Say its name out loud — mǎ — and you are one tone away from "mother" (mā): welcome to the famous tones of Chinese.
A piece of culture
Heavenly horses of the Silk Road China's hunger for horses opened the greatest trade route in history. Emperor Wu of Han heard of "heavenly horses" in the far Ferghana valley — taller and faster than any in China — and sent armies and envoys west to get them. The roads his envoy Zhang Qian scouted became the Silk Road: silk, paper, and tea flowing west; horses, grapes, and Buddhism flowing east. The most famous Chinese sculpture, the "Flying Horse of Gansu", shows one galloping so lightly it balances on a swallow in flight.
Use it in a real word
马上
mǎshàng · maa5 soeng6
immediately — literally "on horseback": nothing was faster than a rider