盐 | yán

In Mandarin Chinese, 盐 (Pinyin: yán 🔊) means “salt”.

If you think it looks complicated, I’ve got news for you: 盐 is actually a simplified form of another character. Here:

鹽

And here’s a small seal script form of this hanzi:

Uncle Hanzi explains its origin as follows

From salt (a bag of alkaline soil) 卤 / 鹵 substituted with soil 土 and phonetic 监 / 監 [simplified to bowl 皿 / 血 and man looking in bowl 臥 substituted with 卜]. Meaning salt.

I hope now everything’s clear.

More photos related to salt @ Shutterstock.