About
The character "狲" derives from the traditional form "猻", which is a phono-semantic compound consisting of the animal radical 犭 and the phonetic component 孙, itself a simplification of 孫. Originally used in the compound "猢狲" to denote macaques or monkeys, the character's meaning was primarily zoological, with the phonetic component serving to indicate pronunciation rather than semantic content. Over centuries, its usage became more specialized through cultural contexts, notably in literature where it forms part of the name Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, thereby acquiring a specific anthropomorphic association while retaining its original zoological reference in limited compounds.