沉船 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

chénchuán

shipwreck

chén, chēn sink

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 冘 represents the sound. Variant of 沈.

氵 Meaning component

shui, shuǐ water

氵 is a component form of 水.

冘 Sound component

yín, yóu to move on

Regular Modern

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	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese
Zhengzhang		l'um
Unicode	djhim

Phonosemantic compound. 舟 represents the meaning and 㕣 represents the sound.

舟 Meaning component

zhōu boat

㕣 Sound component

yǎn a marsh at the foot of the hills

Change in sound

船 and 㕣 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
船 *Cə.lo[n]
㕣 lon

Regular Modern

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	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	zywen	Cə.lo[n]	boat

《說文》：“船，舟也。从舟，鉛省聲。”