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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

阿

ā
Prefix used in terms of address (kinship terms, surnames, given names), usually to express familiarity or friendliness (traditionally used in rural or southern Chinese dialects).
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • radical 阜
  • 8 strokes

Etymology graph

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

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *qaːl): semantic 阜 + phonetic 可 (OC *kʰaːlʔ): Originally meaning a big mound.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ʔa(ŋ/k)- (noun prefix) (STEDT). Compare Burmese အ- (a.-, “idem”) (Schuessler, 2007, p. 149).

; “atto-”

Etymology 2

From 何 (hé).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*ʔa(ŋ/k)-
  • meaningChinese阜 “mound”
  • soundChinese可 “can; may; be able to”
    • meaningChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
    • soundChinese丂 “the appearance of air which is to be released”
      • componentChinese𠃑
      • componentChinese一 “one”

Related: Burmese အ-

Words built on it: 啊, 阿姨

Meanings

character
  1. Prefix used in terms of address (kinship terms, surnames, given names), usually to express familiarity or friendliness (traditionally used in rural or southern Chinese dialects).
  2. Used in transcription.
  3. atto- (SI unit prefix)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

阿：大陵也。一曰曲𨸏也。从𨸏可聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 迎合、附和。 例：阿附、阿諛、守正不阿
  2. 轉折、彎曲的地方。 例：山阿

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

How 阿 was written 字形演變

  1. 阿 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 阿 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 阿 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: 阿