Definitions

mynah

Etymology phono-semantic

bird

Semantic: Phonetic:

About

is a phono-semantic compound found only in ornithological terms. The bird radical on the right places it in the avian category, while the left component (valley or grain) serves solely as a phonetic, giving the reading yù without contributing its literal sense. The traditional form is , with the unsimplified bird radical and the same phonetic . The character appears almost exclusively in the compound 鸲鹆 (qúyù), the formal classical name for the crested mynah (commonly called 八哥, bāgē), a bird known for mimicking human speech.

Etymology Hide

Seal etymology image
Seal Chu (Warring States: 475-221 BC)
Seal etymology image
Seal Shuowen (~100 AD)
Seal etymology image
Seal Shuowen (~100 AD)
Traditional Modern
Simplified Modern