shěng​fèn

province

shěng save

Original meaning: eye disease

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "eye disease", now written as . The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

Sound component
shēng, sheng life

The original sound component was corrupted to look like in the modern form.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to than it was in ancient scripts.
Meaning component
eye

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 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 Qin 221-206 BC
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartsjengX[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

fèn, fen portion

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
rén person

is a component form of .

Sound component
fēn, fèn, fen divide

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangprɯn
bɯns

說文解字

《說文》:“份,文質僣也。从人,分聲。《論語》曰:‘文質份份。’彬,古文份从彡、林。林者,从焚省聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica