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羯 is a phono-semantic compound: 羊 (sheep or goat) on the left indicates the meaning, placing it in the domain of livestock, while 曷 on the right provides the pronunciation. Its original agricultural sense was a castrated ram, a wether, a common practice to improve meat quality and reduce aggression in flocks. The character later became best known as the name of the Jie (羯), an ancient nomadic people who seized power in northern China during a period of dynastic fragmentation, making it a significant term in classical historiography.
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