灘
tān

beach, bank, shoal

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 難 represents the sound.

Components

氵
氵 Meaning component
shui, shuǐ water
難
難 Sound component
nán, nan, nàn difficult

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Warring States ~300 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartthann̥ˤar (E dialect: *n̥ˤ- > MC th-) foreshore

說文解字

《說文》：“，水濡而乾也。从水，聲。《詩》曰：‘其乾矣。’灘，俗从隹。”

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)

滩 tān beach, bank, shoal Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 难 represents the sound. Simplified from 灘.

Components

氵
氵 Meaning component
shui, shuǐ water
难
难 Sound component
nán, nan, nàn difficult

Sources

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