Original meaning: a type of bird
Phonosemantic compound. 鳥 represents the meaning and 正 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "a type of bird". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | 'jen | ʔa[n] | how |
| hjen | [ʔ]a[n] (atonic) | (3p locative pronoun) |
說文解字
《說文》：“焉，焉鳥，黃色，出於江淮。象形。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)