<p>Since this question is tagged under glyph origin, let me go over the origin for character 面.</p>
<hr />
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/TResx.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/TResx.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a>
<strong>面</strong> (miàn; face, side, surface; flour, noodles) [<strong>Baxter-Sagart OC</strong>: /*C.me[n]-s/] is a depiction of an eye (目) [or head (首) in the more earlier oracle bone inscriptions] surrounded by an outline, which here depicts the person's face (now written as ⿱丆囗), indicating it's original meaning &quot;front view of a person's face&quot;.</p>
<p>The meaning later extended as shown by the following sequence below:</p>
<p>front view of a person's face -&gt; <em>face</em> -&gt; <em>surface</em> -&gt; <em>side</em></p>
<p>As a simplified form for 麵 , the meaning (flour; noodles) 面 has can be considered a phoentic loan since 面's meanings of &quot;noodles&quot; were picked up from 麵 due to both of the character's pronouciations sounding pretty much identical.</p>
<hr />
<p>For your other question,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is it common for Chinese words with distinct etymologies to share the same glyphs like this?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's actually kind of quite kind of common since this kind of character simplification happens a few times for some characters. (Especially with 发, the character I asked the origin of simplification about last time.) When the traditional character happens to share an identical pronunciation with said simplified character, the simplified character therefore has the meanings from the traditional character borrowed for additional meanings. (E.g. 錶/表, 錄/录, 闆/板) This kind of phenomenon happens to possibly reduce the number of strokes from the traditional character. However this isn't case for the most part with simplified characters, as this rather increases the ambiguity present in simplified Chinese since (As Tang Ho mentioned) it's hard to tell some meanings of some characters when used alone without any context.</p>
<p>I hope this answers your questions! :)</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Sources used</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Dong Chinese</li>
<li>Outlier Linguistics Dictionary of Chinese Characters</li>
<li>Wiktionary</li>
<li>zi.tools</li>
<li>季旭昇《說文新證》p.700-701</li>
<li>小學堂</li>
<li>漢語多功能字庫</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-13T22:09:37.403Z
Great, except that Simplified Chinese always *increases* (not reduces) ambiguity. The natural development of characters over time was to pile on components (increase complexity) to reduce ambiguity.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-13T22:43:27.323Z
Ah, thanks for the clarification. Just edited my answer right now to include the correction you mentioned.
prismcool
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-21T02:03:46.130Z
Yes, no, maybe. No characters ought to be taken without context. Personally, a Chinese character serves the same function as an English letter - except the former has an intrinsic meaning while the latter doesn't. Do you know what an "e" means when somebody asks you about it? Of course you don't. You need the context - the whole word at least. The entire sentence would even be better.
fat penguin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-13T19:16:20.443Z
2023-12-13T22:48:02.113Z
2023-12-13T22:48:02.113Z
prismcool
<p>As I understand, the original character for wheat noodles was:</p>
<div class="s-table-container">
<table class="s-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>麪</th>
<th>semantic 麥 (“wheat”) + phonetic 丏 (OC *meːnʔ)</th>
</tr>
</thead>
</table>
</div>
<p>which was later simplified to:</p>
<div class="s-table-container">
<table class="s-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>麵</th>
<th>semantic 麥 (“wheat”) + phonetic 面 (OC *mens)</th>
</tr>
</thead>
</table>
</div>
<p>Which was again simplified to:</p>
<div class="s-table-container">
<table class="s-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>面</th>
</tr>
</thead>
</table>
</div>
<p>Was there a reason behind the second simplification, given it is identical to 面 (&quot;face&quot;)? Is it common for Chinese words with distinct etymologies to share the same glyphs like this?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-12T05:54:47.620Z
Simplified Chinese is not perfect.  To avoid confusion, you need enough context, for example, 後 is simplified to 后 because the two words sound the same. You never know 后 means "queen" or "after/ behind" when you only see 后 alone. You never know 面 means "face" or "noodle" when you only see 面  alone.
Tang Ho
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-12T08:21:09.817Z
Why did you describe the substitution of 麪 with 麵 as simplification?
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-12T15:26:10.470Z
@dROOOze ah that was just an assumption I made - what other reasons are there for making such substitutions in Chinese historically? Is it just a variant that overtook the other in popularity?
大胳膊雅各布
<simplified-characters><glyph-origin>
Glyph origin of 面 ("noodles")
# Glyph origin of 面 ("noodles")

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-12-12)

As I understand, the original character for wheat noodles was:

| 麪 | semantic 麥 (“wheat”) + phonetic 丏 (OC \*meːnʔ) |
| --- | --- |

which was later simplified to:

| 麵 | semantic 麥 (“wheat”) + phonetic 面 (OC \*mens) |
| --- | --- |

Which was again simplified to:

| 面 |
| --- |

Was there a reason behind the second simplification, given it is identical to 面 ("face")? Is it common for Chinese words with distinct etymologies to share the same glyphs like this?

**Tags:** simplified-characters, glyph-origin

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Simplified Chinese is not perfect.  To avoid confusion, you need enough context, for example, 後 is simplified to 后 because the two words sound the same. You never know 后 means "queen" or "after/ behind" when you only see 后 alone. You never know 面 means "face" or "noodle" when you only see 面  alone.  
> **username_2**: Why did you describe the substitution of 麪 with 麵 as simplification?  
> **username_0**: @username_2 ah that was just an assumption I made - what other reasons are there for making such substitutions in Chinese historically? Is it just a variant that overtook the other in popularity?  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2023-12-13. Score: 1

Since this question is tagged under glyph origin, let me go over the origin for character 面.

---

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/TResx.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/TResx.png)
**面** (miàn; face, side, surface; flour, noodles) [**Baxter-Sagart OC**: /\*C.me[n]-s/] is a depiction of an eye (目) [or head (首) in the more earlier oracle bone inscriptions] surrounded by an outline, which here depicts the person's face (now written as ⿱丆囗), indicating it's original meaning "front view of a person's face".

The meaning later extended as shown by the following sequence below:

front view of a person's face -> *face* -> *surface* -> *side*

As a simplified form for 麵 , the meaning (flour; noodles) 面 has can be considered a phoentic loan since 面's meanings of "noodles" were picked up from 麵 due to both of the character's pronouciations sounding pretty much identical.

---

For your other question,

> Is it common for Chinese words with distinct etymologies to share the same glyphs like this?

It's actually kind of quite kind of common since this kind of character simplification happens a few times for some characters. (Especially with 发, the character I asked the origin of simplification about last time.) When the traditional character happens to share an identical pronunciation with said simplified character, the simplified character therefore has the meanings from the traditional character borrowed for additional meanings. (E.g. 錶/表, 錄/录, 闆/板) This kind of phenomenon happens to possibly reduce the number of strokes from the traditional character. However this isn't case for the most part with simplified characters, as this rather increases the ambiguity present in simplified Chinese since (As username_1 mentioned) it's hard to tell some meanings of some characters when used alone without any context.

I hope this answers your questions! :)

---

**Sources used**:

* Dong Chinese
* Outlier Linguistics Dictionary of Chinese Characters
* Wiktionary
* zi.tools
* 季旭昇《說文新證》p.700-701
* 小學堂
* 漢語多功能字庫

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Great, except that Simplified Chinese always *increases* (not reduces) ambiguity. The natural development of characters over time was to pile on components (increase complexity) to reduce ambiguity.  
> **username_3**: Ah, thanks for the clarification. Just edited my answer right now to include the correction you mentioned.  
> **username_4**: Yes, no, maybe. No characters ought to be taken without context. Personally, a Chinese character serves the same function as an English letter - except the former has an intrinsic meaning while the latter doesn't. Do you know what an "e" means when somebody asks you about it? Of course you don't. You need the context - the whole word at least. The entire sentence would even be better.  

---

