language

Simplified form of . Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
讠 meaning component

  Meaning component

yán

  

speech

is a component form of .

吾 sound component

  Sound component

  

I, me

Evolution

语 Bronze script Late Spring and Autumn (~500 BC)

Bronze script

Late Spring and Autumn (~500 BC)
语 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
语 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
语 Traditional script Modern

Traditional script

Modern
语 Simplified script Modern

Simplified script

Modern
Definitions

() 

language, words; saying, expression; dialect; language; speech

() 

to tell to

Most common words with 语
Freq.
Word
Meaning

dialect

语言

language

英语

English (language)

法语

French (language)

西班牙语

Spanish language

Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 58.6257% of movies

611th most common character in movies

493rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Traditional

Unicode

U+8BED


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