yī​shǐ

beginning

third person pronoun

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
rén person

is a component form of .

Sound component
yǐn, yún govern

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (0 of 2 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagart'jijʔij this

說文解字

《說文》:“伊,殷聖人阿衡,尹治天下者。从人,从尹。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica

shǐ begin

Original meaning: elder sister

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "elder sister", now written as . The meaning later shifted to "first" and "start".

Components

Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman
Sound component
tái platform
Change in sound

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Qin 221-206 BC
Seal form
Seal Qin 221-206 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartsyiXl̥əʔ begin

說文解字

《說文》:“始,女之初也。从女,台聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica