千
qiān HSK2

thousand

Derived from 人. 一 was added as a distinguishing mark to represent "thousand".

Components

亻
亻 Sound component
rén person

亻 is a component form of 人.

Change in sound
一
yī one

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 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

Component uses

Sound (3 of 12 verified)

Meaning (0 of 4 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttshens.n̥ˤi[ŋ] thousand

說文解字

《說文》:“千,十百也。从十,从人。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫季旭昇《說文新證》p.155-156
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica

韆 swing Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. 革 represents the meaning and 遷 represents the sound.

Components

革
革 Meaning component
gé leather
遷
遷 Sound component
qiān move, shift

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld Chinese
Zhengzhangsʰen
Unicodetsiɛn

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang