The origin of the kanji 読


The kanji 読 appears to consist of 言 and 売.

How come 言 (say) + 売 (sell) = 読 （read)?

Could you please shed some light on the origin of the kanji?

Thank you!




Character structure analysis is usually on
[_Kyūjitai_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABjitai). The character to
look at is「讀」.

Note that「売」approximates the shape of「賣」, but the right hand side of「讀」is
not「賣」, but「」. In the character「読」, we therefore have「売」approximating the
shape of「賣」which approximates the shape of「」.

* * *

「讀{どく}」([Baxter-Sagart
OC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_\(2014\)):
**/*C.lˤok/** , _to read_ ) is comprised of semantic「言」( _speech, words_ ) and
phonetic「{いく}」( **/*luk/** ).

