Pictograph of a mountain.
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | srean | s-ŋrar | mountain, hill |
說文解字
《說文》：“山，宣也。宣气，生萬物，有石而高。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)
西 was written two different ways in ancient scripts: (1) a pictograph of a bird's nest, and (2) a variant of the phonetically similar 囟.
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | sej | s-nˤər | west |
| sej | s-nˤər | west |
說文解字
《說文》：“西，鳥在巢上，象形。日在西方而鳥棲，故因以為東西之西。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 季旭昇《說文新證》p.831-832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)
Simplified
Original meaning: to hunt
Depicts using a hunting tool (單) and a dog (犬) to hunt for and capture wild animals. Original form of 狩. 口 was later added as a distinguishing mark. The meaning later shifted to "beast". The traditional component 犬 was deleted for simplification.
Components
單 IconicSimplified component
口 Distinguishing component
Traditional
Original meaning: to hunt
Depicts using a hunting tool (單) and a dog (犬) to hunt for and capture wild animals. Original form of 狩. 口 was later added as a distinguishing mark. The meaning later shifted to "beast".
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | syuwH | s.tʰu(ʔ)-s | (wild) animal |
說文解字
《說文》：“獸，守備者。从嘼，从犬。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫李学勤《字源》p.1270劉志基《中國漢字文物大系》Vol. 14, p.393何琳儀《戰國古文字典：戰國文字聲系》p.218
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)