談
tánTán HSK3

talk

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

Components

言
言 Meaning component
yán speech
炎
炎 Sound component
yán flame

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
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-Sagartdamlˤ[o]m speak

說文解字

《說文》：“談，語也。从言，炎聲。”

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)

谈 tán talk Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 讠 represents the meaning and 炎 represents the sound. Simplified form of 談.

Components

讠
讠 Meaning component
yán speech

讠 is a component form of 言.

炎
炎 Sound component
yán flame

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode