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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

語

yǔ
to speak; to say
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • radical 言
  • 14 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, *ŋaʔ; *ŋah): semantic 言 + phonetic 吾 (*ŋa; *ŋˤa).

Part of a *ŋa- word family centred on "to face; to respond to": 御 (OC *ŋˤrah, “to drive; to resist; to welcome; to attend upon”), 禦 (OC *ŋaʔ, “to defend; to resist”), 圉 (OC *ŋaʔ, “to guard; border”), 迓 (OC *ŋˤrah, “to welcome; to meet in battle”), 逆 (OC *ŋrak, “to meet; to oppose”), 晤 (OC *ŋˤah, “to meet face to face”), 忤 (OC *ŋˤah, “to go against”). The original sense was likely "to face someone with speech; speech directed at an interlocutor", as opposed to 言 (OC *ŋan), which denotes the speech act itself. Compare Shuowen: 直言曰言，論難曰語.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ŋaq (“to speak”). Compare Tibetan ངག (ngag, “speech”).

According to Schuessler (2007), 言 (OC *ŋan, “to speak; speech; talk”) is 語 (OC *ŋaʔ) with a nominal -n suffix.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*ŋaq “to speak”
  • meaningChinese言 “to say; to speak; to talk”
  • soundChinese吾 “I”
    • soundChinese五 “five”
    • meaningChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”

Related: Tibetan ངག

Words built on it: 語言

Meanings

character
  1. to speak; to say
  2. to chirp; to hoot
  3. speech; language
  4. spoken language (contrary to written language 文)
  5. expression; words
  6. saying; proverb; set phrase

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

語：論也。从言吾聲。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 告訴。 例：居，吾語女。（《論語．陽貨》）

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

How 語 was written 字形演變

  1. 語 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 語 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 語 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 語 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 語 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
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 語