Is 也 within the kanji 池 acting as a phonetic?


Recently, I have been studying kanji seriously. I just learned the
compositions 成り立ち of kanji. There is a 成り立ち that confuses me a lot. My text
book says 池 is a kanji categorized as 形声文字 (kanji composed with 音記号（音符） and
意符. 音記号 of 池 is 也, but 也 itself is read ヤ not チ（onyomi of 池）or いけ. How come
this kanji 池 is read チ（音）. Is 音読み and reading of 音記号 are completely different
things? However, is there a possibility that my textbook (my professor's hand-
made book) is wrong.




The answer is clearer if we look at how they may have been pronounced in Old
Chinese.

  * [池](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B1%A0)
    * (Baxter–Sagart): /*Cə.lraj/
    * (Zhengzhang): /*l'al/
  * [也](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B9%9F)
    * (Baxter–Sagart): /*lAjʔ/
    * (Zhengzhang): /*laːlʔ/

(Baxter-Sagart refers to one set of reconstructions, specifically [the one in
this
book](https://ocbaxtersagart.lsait.lsa.umich.edu/BaxterSagartOCbyMandarinMC2014-09-20.pdf).)

Now, reconstructions are necessarily based on incomplete information, and so
you can see that the two reconstructions don't agree on what the initial or
final of 池 and 也 actually are. However, both of them agree that the two
characters were certainly pronounced more similar to each other than in modern
Chinese varieties.

You can see that 池 ended up diverging from 也 in pronunciation starting from
Middle Chinese because of a difference in articulation in the initial (either
a sesquisyllable in Baxter-Sagart, or a pharyngealised initial in Zhengzhang's
reconstruction).

In summary, you can see that while 也 is not a meaningful phonetic component
from the point of view of modern Chinese dialects or Sino-Japanese readings,
they were much closer to each other in Old Chinese.

(PS: Your question also applies to 地, which is certainly more similar to 池,
but also raises the similar question of why it has a phonetic 也. The answer is
the same as above.)




The answer is clearer if we look at how they may have been pronounced in Old
Chinese.

  * [池](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B1%A0)
    * (Baxter–Sagart): /*Cə.lraj/
    * (Zhengzhang): /*l'al/
  * [也](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B9%9F)
    * (Baxter–Sagart): /*lAjʔ/
    * (Zhengzhang): /*laːlʔ/

(Baxter-Sagart refers to one set of reconstructions, specifically [the one in
this
book](https://ocbaxtersagart.lsait.lsa.umich.edu/BaxterSagartOCbyMandarinMC2014-09-20.pdf).)

Now, reconstructions are necessarily based on incomplete information, and so
you can see that the two reconstructions don't agree on what the initial or
final of 池 and 也 actually are. However, both of them agree that the two
characters were certainly pronounced more similar to each other than in modern
Chinese varieties.

You can see that 池 ended up diverging from 也 in pronunciation starting from
Middle Chinese because of a difference in articulation in the initial (either
a sesquisyllable in Baxter-Sagart, or a pharyngealised initial in Zhengzhang's
reconstruction).

In summary, you can see that while 也 is not a meaningful phonetic component
from the point of view of modern Chinese dialects or Sino-Japanese readings,
they were much closer to each other in Old Chinese.

(PS: Your question also applies to 地, which is certainly more similar to 池,
but also raises the similar question of why it has a phonetic 也. The answer is
the same as above.)

