鹽
yán HSK4

salt

Phonosemantic compound. 監 represents the sound and 鹵 represents the meaning.

Components

監
監 Sound component
jiān watch carefully
鹵
鹵 Meaning component
salt

salt

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartyem[ɢr][o]m salt (n.)
yemH[ɢr][o]m-s salt (v.)

說文解字

《說文》：“鹽，鹹也。从鹵，監聲。古者宿沙初作煮海鹽。”

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)

盐 yán salt Simplified

Simplified form of 鹽. Phonosemantic compound. 監 represents the sound and 鹵 represents the meaning.

Components

監
監 SoundSimplified component
jiān watch carefully

Shorthand for the sound component 監 in the traditional character 鹽.

卜
卜 Simplified component
bo fortune telling

Shorthand for the meaning component 鹵 in the traditional character 鹽.

Sources

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