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)
Original meaning: head
Depicts a person (大) with an emphasized head. Based on the original meaning "head". The meaning later shifted to "top", "high", and "sky".
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | then | l̥ˤi[n] | heaven |
| xen | l̥ˤi[n] (W dialect: l̥ˤ- > Hàn-time *xˤ- > MC x-) | heaven |
說文解字
《說文》：“天，顛也。至高无上，从一、大。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 季旭昇《說文新證》p.40-41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)