它 | tā

‘This, ladies and gentlemen, is the proverbial “it”.’

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In Mandarin Chinese, 它 (Pinyin: tā 🔊) is a third-person singular pronoun for inanimate objects; in simplified Chinese, it’s also a third-person singular pronoun for animals. In any case, in English it’s translated as “it”.

According to Wiktionary, its original meaning was “a snake”, which, as we know, now is taken over by 蛇:

The character was later borrowed for the then-homophonous third-person pronoun (“he/she/it”). Today 他 (tā) is used for male or gender-unspecified “he” and 她 (tā) for “she”.

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