Chinese Character Wiki
音

yīn

sound

Originally the same as 言 (speech) but with an extra line added in the mouth (口) to distinguish the two characters.

Components
言 iconic component

言  Iconic component

yán

  

speech

Depicts a tongue sticking out of the mouth.

◎ distinguishing component

◎  Distinguishing component

  

characterless component

Mark to distinguish 音 from 言.

Evolution

音 Bronze script Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)

Bronze script

Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)
音 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
音 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
音 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

音  

yīn

sound, tone, pitch, pronunciation; sound; noise; note (of musical scale); tone; news; syllable; reading (phonetic value of a character)

Most common words with 音
Freq.
Word
Meaning

音乐

music

声音

voice

音

sound

录音

to record (sound)

语音

speech sounds

Component uses

Meaning component in 5 characters (2 verified)

意 響 韵 韻 韶

Sound component in 8 characters (1 verified)

暗 黯 諳 谙 歆 喑 窨 揞

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[q](r)əm

'im

yīn

sound, tone


Statistics

HSK level 2

Appears in 72.8176% of movies

384th most common character in movies

540th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+97F3

Shuowen

“音，聲也。生於心有節於外謂之音；宮商角徵羽聲；絲竹金石匏土革木音也。从言，含一。”


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