Phono-Semantic Words:How the Word Guessing Game Plays?

People think that all Chinese glyphs are pictograms or ideograms.

They are fascinated by the message carried over by those interesting tiny pictographs from thousand years ago.

However, a vast majority of Chinese glyphs that exist today are phono-semantic words which are constructed with a symbol that hints at the meaning, and a glyph that marks the vocal sound associated.

Just like playing a Charade word guessing game every time you look at these words.

How the phono-semantic word guessing game plays?

An example of Phono-semantic Compound Words

Let's look at an example, 住[zhù].

住[zhù] means “to live” or “to stay” as a verb.

This word is a phono-semantic compound word with a vocal sound of 主[zhǔ] expressing dominant presence accompanied by a “person” symbol 亻[rén] as a clue meant “the one.” 

The ultimate meaning is thus, “The one” who “has a dominant presence” there. 

That is to say, “the one” who “lives” there.

主[zhǔ] is an original pictogram that exists early in language developing stages with a vocal sound of its own. This vocal sound is associated with prominence or dominant presence.

When primary pictograms and ideograms are no longer sufficient for communication, people borrow the vocal sound and relates the meaning of a pictogram and supplements it with a hand gesture and finger-pointing. 

The hand gesture and finger-pointing become a semantic symbol in written language, such as “person” 亻[rén], associated with the ultimate meaning.

That’s how phono-semantic words come along.

Phono-semantic words constituted a vast majority of Chinese words that exist today. Out of 49 thousand words documented in an 18th-century imperial dictionary, 97% are phono-semantic.

There is more about the phono-semantic compound words in my upcoming Youtube video, Lesson 10 in Learn Chinese with Serena series.