信笺 Origin — Chinese Character Wiki

xìn trust

Conveys trusting (信) what a person (人) says (言). 人 is also a sound component.

Components

rén person

亻 is a component form of 人.

Change in sound

信 and 亻 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
信 *s-ni[ŋ]-s
亻 *ni[ŋ]

言 Meaning component

yán speech

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	sinH	s-ni[ŋ]-s	truthful

說文解字

《說文》：“信，誠也。从人，从言，會意。，古文从言省。訃，古文信。”

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)

jiān note Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. ⺮ represents the meaning and 戋 represents the sound. Simplified form of 箋.

Components

⺮ Meaning component

zhú bamboo

⺮ is a component form of 竹.

戋 Sound component

jiān, cán small

Sources

Readings & variants: Unicode

note Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. ⺮ represents the meaning and 戔 represents the sound.

Components

⺮ Meaning component

zhú bamboo

⺮ is a component form of 竹.

戔 Sound component

small

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese
Zhengzhang		ʔsleːn
Unicode	tzen

說文解字

表識書也。从竹戔聲。

Sources

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

信 xìn trust

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

笺 jiān note Simplified

Components

Sources

箋 note Traditional

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

xìn trust

jiān note Simplified

note Traditional