息 | xī | xí

In Mandarin Chinese, 息 (Pinyin: xī 🔊 or xí 🔊) is a word of many meanings. As a verb, it can stand for “to breathe”, “to sigh”, “to blow”; “to stop”, “to cease”, “to rest”, “to calm down”; “to grow”, “to develop”. As a noun, it can mean “breath”, “life”, “(one’s) child”, “news”, “message”, “interest” or “dividends”.

According to Wiktionary, 息 is an ideogrammic compound of 自 “nose” and 心, “heart-mind”, meaning “to breathe (life) through one’s nose”. Likewise, Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

As per 自 (nose) + 心 heart/emotions → breathe through the nostrils in rhythm with the beating of the heart → breath → live → give birth; increase. Also, stop; rest (← stops and starts of steady breathing); interest (← increase); son (← give birth).

It’s curious how the logical extension of “breath” leads to the almost opposite meanings of “growth” (to breath is to live, to live is to grow and give birth) and “rest” (cf. English “take a breather”). I find it very Yin-Yang-y: in order to keep living, you need to take a rest!

Like other hanzi containing 心 in the lower part (e.g. 思, 想, 念, 意), 息 reminds me of a sailship. It’s resting but perfectly ready to go.

Compounds of 息 include

• 息 + 男 = 息男 (xīnán, xínán): (one’s) son
• 息 + 女 = 息女 (xīnǚ, xínǚ): (one’s) daughter
• 息 + 怒 = 息怒 (xīnù, xínù): to calm down; to not be angry
• 息 + 息 + 相 + 关 = 息息相关 (xīxīxiāngguān, xíxíxiāngguān): to be closely linked
• 休 + 息 = 休息 (xiūxi 🔊, xiūxí): to rest; to take a break
• 太 + 息 = 太息 (tàixī, tàixí): to sigh
• 子 + 息 = 子息 (zǐxī, zǐxí): son; the next generation; (monetary) interest
• 气 + 息 = 气息 (qìxí, qìxí): breath; smell, odour, flavour; style, appeal; spirit
• 安 + 息 = 安息 (ānxī 🔊, ānxí): to rest; to rest in peace
• 出 + 息 = 出息 (chūxi 🔊): prospects, promise, future
• 月 + 息 = 月息 (yuèxī, yuèxí): monthly interest

In Japanese, 息, in its “breath” meaning, is pronounced iki (いき). Here’s a poem by John White (1924—2021) called The Breath in the Flute (笛の息), from the book of the same name.

The breath in the flute is the sound of life stirring springtime and sadness John White 笛の息 いのち動く音 春と悲しみ Fue no iki inochi ugoku oto haru to kanashimi

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安 | ān

In Mandarin Chinese, 安 (Pinyin: ān 🔊) has many meanings but most of them are related to the concepts of peace and security. It could be an adjective meaning “calm”, “peaceful”, “tranquil”, “quiet”, “comfortable”, “safe”, “secure”, or a verb for “to calm”, “to be content with”, “to place”, “to find a place for”, “to fit”, “to set up”, “to bring”, “to cherish”, “to harbour”. In physics, 安 is short for 安培 (ānpéi), “ampere”.

Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

宀 roof/building + 女 woman → woman resting/at ease indoors → be at ease/peace → cheap; inexpensive (← cheap enough to be purchased with ease).

The meaning “cheap”, however, is specific for Japanese, where the word 女 (あん; an) has an additional sense in chemistry for “ammonium”. Also, according to Ponte Ryūrui,

The modern form of the hiragana character あ comes from the cursive form of the kanji 安.

Back to Chinese — many compounds of 安 include

• 安 + 心 = 安心 (ānxīn 🔊): (to be) relieved or at ease
• 安 + 好 = 安好 (ānhǎo): safe and sound
• 公 + 安 = 公安 (gōng'ān): public security (officer); police (officer)
• 天 + 安 + 门 = 天安门 (Tiān'ānmén): Tiananmen, “Gate of Heavenly Peace”.

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妳 | nǐ

So what have we learned so far about Chinese pronouns? Like in many Indo-European languages, there are gender-specific third person pronouns in written Chinese: 他 “he” and 她 “she”. Unlike many Indo-European languages, spoken Chinese does not differentiate between “him” and “her”: both are pronounced the same (Pinyin: tā 🔊).

But that’s not all. Also unlike many Indo-European languages, written Chinese has gender-specific second person pronouns: 你 “you” (singular informal masculine) and 妳 “you” (singular informal feminine). In spoken Mandarin, there is no difference between 你 and 妳 (nǐ 🔊).

As you should have guessed by now, 妳 is derived from 你 by replacing 亻 with 女. According to Wiktionary,

This character is mostly used in traditional Chinese when referring to a female person. Although 妳 is rarely used in simplified Chinese, it may still be found in some contexts.

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她 | tā

In Mandarin Chinese, 她 (Pinyin: tā 🔊) is a personal pronoun “she” or “her”.

According to Wiktionary, 她 is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 女 “female”, “woman” and phonetic 也 (yě 🔊, which, however, sounds nothing like tā). This is the rare case when it is known who and when invented this character:

Originally a variant of 姐 (jiě, “elder sister”). Later repurposed as a feminine third-person pronoun influenced by European languages, with the glyph being the result of replacing the 人 (“person”) radical in 他 (tā) with 女 (“woman”). Linguist Liu Bannong is credited with coining this use around the 1910s.

Liu Bannong (1891—1934) also popularised its use by writing the lyrics for a 1930s “hit” song 教我如何不想她 (Jiào wǒ rúhé bùxiǎng tā, “Tell me how to stop thinking of her”) composed by Yuen Ren Chao.

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好 | hǎo | hào

In Mandarin Chinese, 好 (Pinyin: hǎo 🔊) means “good”, “well”, “nice”, “easy” and so on. This character also has another, slightly different pronunciation (hào 🔊) meaning “to like” or “to be easy to”.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that 好 is made up of two familiar characters, 女 and 子. But why? According to Wiktionary,

The widely accepted meaning of this character is that the characters for “female” (女) and “child” (子) were put together to form a compound because it was good for a woman to have a child. Similarly, it has been proposed that the compound originally refers to the mutual affection between the mother and child, which then extended to mean “good”. These theories are supported by the smaller 子 found in some oracle bones and bronze inscriptions.

However, broader interpretations of the second character 子 could lead to other theories. 子 could also mean “son”, so it may have meant two children, a boy and a girl next to each other, which is a good fortune to have a boy and a girl. 子 could also mean “man”, so it may have referred to the love between a man and a woman, which is good. Duan Yucai, in his annotated version of Shuowen, interpreted it as originally referring to the beauty of 女子 (nǚzǐ, “woman”). Lastly, it could mean that the “attitude” of a girl was considered good.

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子 | zǐ

In Mandarin Chinese, 子 (Pinyin: zǐ 🔊) has many meanings. As a noun, it can signify “a child”, “an offspring”, “a son”, “a person”, “a seed” or “an egg”, while as an adjective, it means “young” or “small”.

子 is also the first of twelve earthly branches. It corresponds to the Year of the Rat (鼠) of the Chinese zodiac; the eleventh month; the hour of the Rat (11 pm to 1 am, “the time when Rats are most active in seeking food”); and the direction 0° (i.e. north). Its associated “fixed element” is Water, 水.

Curiously, a combination of 男 “man” with 子, 男子 (nánzǐ), still means “a man”, not “a boy” as one would expect; similarly, 女 + 子 = 女子 (nǚzǐ) means “a woman”, not “a girl”. (This is not the case in Japanese where 男子 and 女子 mean exactly that: “a boy” and “a girl”, respectively.) However, an anagram of 女子, 子女 (zǐnǚ), means “children”, i.e. “sons and daughters”.

Many historical forms of 子 show a baby with a large head and spread arms (the legs are presumably swaddled). To remember the pronunciation of this word, I think of it as a variant of Latin letter Ƶ (pronounced American way, /ziː/ 🔊).

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女 | nǚ

In Mandarin Chinese, 女 (Pinyin: nǚ 🔊) means “woman”, “daughter” or, when applied to people, “female”. A combination with 人 “people”, 女人 (nǚrén 🔊), means “(an adult) woman”, “wife” or “mistress”.

According to Ponte Ryūrui, 女 “is a pictograph of a woman kneeling on the ground, shown with her arms entangled, holding a garment” while Wiktionary says that it is

a woman with breasts kneeling or standing. In modern form turned on left side: enclosed area is remnant of left breast (character’s left, depicted woman’s right), while right breast has disappeared. Graphically cognate to 母 (mǔ, “mother”), which has developed similarly, but also includes dots for nipples and has retained both breasts.

I prefer thinking of 女 as two entangled Greek letters ν (nu) which, incidentally, helps me to remember its pronunciation.

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