About
鲧 is a phono-semantic compound. Its simplified form uses the fish radical (鱼) on the left for the semantic category and the phonetic component (系) on the right. The traditional form 鯀 uses 魚 and 絲 (or variants of the silk radical) respectively. The character originally meant a large mythical fish or sea creature. In historical texts, however, it functions almost exclusively as a proper noun, referring to the mythological figure Gun, the father of Yu the Great who attempted to control the Great Flood.
Etymology Hide
