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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

哪

/nä²¹⁴/
which; what
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 口
  • 10 strokes
  • 吶
  • 呐

Etymology graph

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Origin

Written as 那 before the 20th century.

It is generally considered to be the fusion of 奈何 (OC *naːls ɡaːl, “how”) (Wang, 1990; Sun, 1992; Shimura, 1995), usually citing Gu Yanwu's (顧炎武) commentary on Zuozhuan. Lü (1985) distinguishes between “which” (choosing among several choices), which he derives from 若 (OC *njaɡ), and “how” (asking for something), which he considers to be a fusion of 若何 (OC *njaɡ ɡaːl, “how”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

Words built on it: 哪些, 哪裡, 哪怕, 哪兒

Meanings

character
  1. which; what
  2. any
  3. Indefinite determiner.
  4. where
  5. wherever; anywhere; everywhere
  6. how (used in rhetorical questions)

國語辭典 definitions

  1. →哪吒

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 哪 was written 字形演變

  1. 哪 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 哪 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 哪