氐 di

到底 dao di

氏 shi

派对 pai dui

民族 min zu

These vocabulary look alike but sound different yet all concern constituents of the state.

氏 shi

clan. image was originally of a man bowing to the ground. now is a cliff and a war-dart, the idea that this clan resides at a cliff and is armed.

氐 di

foundation; name of an ancient tribe. It’s an image of the roots of a tree; or those with war-darts residing at the base of a certain cliff. the dot is ideographic indicating the idea of the lowest point of the root system of the clan, whether that root system is of a literal tree or a metaphor of the family tree.

底 di

background foundation base: the literal broad cliff where the people who call themselves the tribe dwelling at the base of the cliff live.

 

到底 dao di

fundamentally, in the end, in the final analysis reached the base of it all, the root of it all

 

民族 min zu

body+dart=nation. the nation is an armed body.

flag+person+arrow=race, ethnic group (usually, a minority). Armed people with a flag. They are not merely a group of relatives they are also politically organized.

派对 pai dui part (social, not political) but

派 pai means streams of thought, intellectual currents, by extension school of thought; but also clique, sect, faction. It is a tributary river next to another river. Without the three dots of water on the left determinant it means tributary