拉萨
Lā​sà

Lhasa

拉 lā, la pull

Phonosemantic compound. 扌 represents the meaning and 立 represents the sound.

Components

扌
扌 Meaning component
shou, shǒu hand

扌 is a component form of 手.

立
立 Sound component
lì stand
Change in sound

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (1)

啦

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartlop[r]ˤəp break

說文解字

《說文》：“拉，摧也。从手，立聲。”

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)

萨 sà Bodhisattva, Buddhist idol Simplified

Simplified form of 薩. Used in transliterations of Sanskrit words, such as "Bodhisattva" (菩萨).

Components

艹
艹 Unknown component
cao, cǎo grass
隡
隡 Simplified component
sà [geographical place name]

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode

薩 sà Bodhisattva, Buddhist idol Traditional

Used in transliterations of Sanskrit words, such as "Bodhisattva" (菩萨). Possibly a corruption of 薛.

Components

艹
艹 Unknown component
cao, cǎo grass

艹 is a component form of 艸.

隡
隡 Unknown component
sà [geographical place name]

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangsaːd

Sources

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