Examples are 河 hé "river", 湖 hú "lake", 流 liú "stream", 沖 chōng "riptide" (or "flush"), 滑 huá "slippery". All these characters have on the left a radical of three short strokes (氵), which is a reduced form of the character 水 shuǐ meaning "water", indicating that the character has a semantic connection with water. The right-hand side in each case is a phonetic indicator. For example, in the case of 沖 chōng (Old Chinese *ɡ-ljuŋ), the phonetic indicator is 中 zhōng (Old Chinese *k-ljuŋ), which by itself means "middle". In this case it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character is slightly different from that of its phonetic indicator; the process of historical phonetic change means that the composition of such characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today.
Examples are 河 hé " river " , 湖 hú " lake " , 流 liú " stream " , 沖 chōng " riptide " ( or " flush " ) , 滑 huá " slippery " . All these characters have on the left a radical of three short strokes ( 氵 ) , which is a reduced form of the character 水 shuǐ meaning " water " , indicating that the character has a semantic connection with water . The right - hand side in each case is a phonetic indicator . For example , in the case of 沖 chōng ( Old Chinese * ɡ - ljuŋ ) , the phonetic indicator is 中 zhōng ( Old Chinese * k - ljuŋ ) , which by itself means " middle " . In this case it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character is slightly different from that of its phonetic indicator ; the process of historical phonetic change means that the composition of such characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today .
What is the process of historical phonetic change?
What is the process of historical phonetic change ?
phonetic indicator
phonetic indicator