誰
shéi HSK1

who? whom? whose? anyone?

Phonosemantic compound. 言 represents the meaning and 隹 represents the sound.

Components

言
言 Meaning component
yán speech
隹
隹 Sound component
zhuī, cuī, wéi bird

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartdzywij[d]uj who

說文解字

《說文》：“誰，何也。从言，隹聲。”

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)

谁 shuí who? whom? whose? anyone? Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 讠 represents the meaning and 隹 represents the sound.

Components

讠
讠 Meaning component
yán speech

讠 is a component form of 言.

隹
隹 Sound component
zhuī, cuī, wéi bird

Sources

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