外企 Origin — Chinese Character Wiki

wàiqǐ HSK7

foreign enterprise

wài outside

Phonosemantic compound. 卜 represents the meaning and 月 represents the sound.

Components

卜 Iconic component

bo fortune telling

Depicts the cracks on the outside of a turtle shell.

月 Sound component

yuè, yue moon

Looks like 夕, which is also a pictograph of a moon.

Change in sound

外 and 月 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
外 *[ŋ]ʷˤa[t]-s
月 *[ŋ]ʷat

Change in form

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

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

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

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	ngwajH	[ŋ]ʷˤa[t]-s	outside

說文解字

《說文》：“外，遠也。卜尚平旦，今夕卜，於事外矣。，古文外。”

Sources

Character origin: 季旭昇《說文新證》p.555-556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)

qǐ plan a project, stand on tiptoe

Depicts a person (人) standing on their feet (止).

Components

人 Iconic component

rén, ren person

止 Iconic component

zhǐ (foot), stop

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	khjieX	kʰeʔ	stand on tiptoe
	khjieH	kʰeʔ-s	stand on tiptoe

說文解字

《說文》：“企，舉踵也。从人，止聲。，古文企从足。”

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)

外 wài outside

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

企 qǐ plan a project, stand on tiptoe

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

wài outside

qǐ plan a project, stand on tiptoe