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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

鹽

yán
salt; salty substance, especially table salt
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 鹵
  • 24 strokes
  • 醃
  • 漬
  • 腌
  • 渍

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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  • meaning component
  • sound component
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ɡ·lam, *ɡ·lams): phonetic 監 (OC *kraːm, *kraːms) + semantic 鹵 (“salt”).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *g-rjum (“salt”). The Min forms point to a fricative initial in Proto-Min *ziem (“a white encrustation formed from saltwater or brine”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*g-rjum “salt”
  • soundChinese監 “to supervise; to oversee”
    • ideaChinese臥 “to lie down”
      • ideaChinese臣 “slave; servant; captive”
      • ideaChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
    • ideaChinese皿 “dish; vessel”
  • meaningChinese鹵 “saline soil”

Related: Proto-Min *ziem

Meanings

character
  1. salt; salty substance, especially table salt
  2. salt
  3. food product pickled with salt
  4. sweat stain; salt efflorescence

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

鹽：鹹也。从鹵監聲。古者，宿沙初作煑海鹽。凡鹽之屬皆从鹽。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 一種無色透明、不易潮解的礦物質。主要成分為氯化鈉。有海鹽、池鹽、井鹽、岩鹽等。可供調味及工業上使用。 例：粗鹽、井鹽
  2. 化學上指凡酸類中之氫根為金屬元素所取代而成的化合物。如氯化鈉、硝酸鉀等。　△鹽類

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

How 鹽 was written 字形演變

  1. 鹽 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 鹽 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 鹽 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 鹽 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 鹽 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 鹽