Pictograph of a mountain.
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | srean | s-ŋrar | mountain, hill |
說文解字
《說文》：“山，宣也。宣气，生萬物，有石而高。象形。”
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)
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: eye disease
Phonosemantic compound. 目 represents the meaning and 生 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "eye disease", now written as 眚. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | sjengX | [s]eŋʔ | inspect |
說文解字
《說文》：“省，視也。从眉省，从屮。，古文从少，从囧。”
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)