街坊 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

jiēfāng

neighbor

jiē street

Phonosemantic compound. 行 represents the meaning and 圭 represents the sound.

Components

行 Meaning component

xíng, háng walk

圭 Sound component

guī jade pointed at top

Change in sound

街 and 圭 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
街 *[k]ˤre
圭 *[k]ʷˤe

Character Evolution

Seal form — Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	kea	[k]ˤre	road-crossing

說文解字

《說文》：“街，四通道也。从行，圭聲。”

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)

fang neighborhood

Phonosemantic compound. 土 represents the meaning and 方 represents the sound.

Components

土 Meaning component

tǔ earth

方 Sound component

fāng, fang square

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	bjang	[b]aŋ	dike
Zhengzhang		paŋ
		baŋ
Unicode	biɑng

說文解字

邑里之名。从土方聲。古通用埅。

Sources

Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

街 jiē street

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

坊 fang neighborhood

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

jiē street

fang neighborhood