声 Origin — Chinese Character Wiki

shēng HSK2

sound

Remnant of the character 殸 (stone chimes). Depicts a musical stone chime hung up on a rope. Simplified form of 聲.

Components

糸 Iconic component

mì, sī silk

Depicts a rope. Modern form looks like unrelated 士.

Change in form

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 糸 than it was in ancient scripts.

石 Iconic component

shí stone

Change in form

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 石 than it was in ancient scripts.

Phonosemantic compound. 耳 represents the meaning and 殸 represents the sound.

耳 Meaning component

ěr ear

殸 Sound component

qìng, kēng, shēng stone chimes

Change in sound

聲 and 殸 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Middle Chinese.
聲 syeng
殸 khengH

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	syeng	[l̥]eŋ	sound (n.)

《說文》：“聲，音也。从耳，殸聲。殸，籀文磬。”