<p>Your observation is brilliant. However, there's no easy conclusion.</p>
<p>People summarize the formation of Chinese characters into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification" rel="nofollow noreferrer">six categories</a>, namely 象形, 指事, 会意, 形声, 转注, and 假借. For the case of &quot;饿&quot;, it's a phono-semantic compound (形声字) made up of &quot;食&quot; -- the semantic part, and &quot;我&quot; --- the phonetic part. Therefore, you may find the pronunciations of 我 and 饿 are <strong>similar</strong>. However, a phono-semantic compound does not necessarily follow exactly the same pronunciation. &quot;我&quot; is a ideograph (指事字), which has a more vague origin for its pronunciation.</p>
<p>The pronunciation of Chinese characters can date back to more than two thousand of years ago. At that time, most researcher now believing, there was no tone system and the words use suffices to identify its speech, etc, like Latin does. It also uses suffices to distinguish between different phono-semantic compound words. For example in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Old Chinese</a>, the pronunciations for 我 and 饿 are <code>/ŋaːlʔ/</code> and <code>/ŋaːls/</code> respectively(from <a href="https://ytenx.org/zim?dzih=%E6%88%91%E9%A5%BF&amp;kyonh=1&amp;trngyan=1&amp;tcyts=1&amp;pyonh=1&amp;dciangx=1&amp;jtkb=1&amp;jtdt=1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a>). It differs so much from modern days, and it developed a long way and changing from time to time. A thousand years later in Tang Dynasty, when we called the language <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Middle Chinese</a>, the pronunciations of 我 and 饿 changes to <code>/ŋɑ/</code> but with different tones (上声 and 去声 respectively).</p>
<p>For 我 and 戈, they have some relationship in terms of origin. In the old days, &quot;我&quot; means one's own country. And country always has armies. &quot;戈&quot; is the arms made up long wooden stick and a metallic blade (see <a href="http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/sw/6211.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">说文解字</a>). Today, we can only know that 我 and 戈 shares the same vowel in Middle Chinese, and this is related to the similar syllable coda in Old Chinese. But the root reason of the similarity is still unclear. We still lacking convincing evidences to claim anything. Digging out the pronunciation of two thousand years without any audio documentation is a difficult thing, not to mention the pronunciation system and rules.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T21:35:28.670Z
Well /ŋaːlʔ/ explains something that puzzled me: In 江苏泰州话，他们用‘n'为’我‘ Now I can guess where that came from! I'm sure the pronunciation of Chinese dates back to the beginnings of language in this region, long before writing. I've never understood how scientists decide how people pronounced words in the distant past!
Pedroski
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-21T09:52:47.210Z
Middle Chinese reconstruction is quite accurate because we have dictionaries from those times + transcriptions of foreign words. Old Chinese is a bit difficult, but good guesses come from comparing with similar shifts and languages (Min, Bai, even Tibetan) that split off earlier.
iamanigeeit
CC BY-SA 4.0
2017-05-12T08:18:18.917Z
2022-07-06T00:38:29.773Z
2022-07-06T00:38:29.773Z
Harry Summer
<p>You are right.
Pronunciation of 饿 came from 我[1]，我 from 俄[2]， and 俄 from 莪(é)[3].</p>

<p>If you are into ancient Chinese, here are two websites I highly recommend.
<a href="http://www.zdic.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.zdic.net/</a></p>

<p><a href="http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en</a></p>

<p>references</p>

<p>[1]<a href="http://www.zdic.net/z/28/js/997F.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.zdic.net/z/28/js/997F.htm</a></p>

<p>[2]<a href="http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/kx/6211.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/kx/6211.htm</a></p>

<p>[3]<a href="http://www.zdic.net/z/15/kx/4FC4.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.zdic.net/z/15/kx/4FC4.htm</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T02:00:33.360Z
by the way, there are some dialects of Chinese in which 饿 is pronounced "wò".
Gestaltfilter
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T05:41:06.397Z
-1 for now since this doesn't answer either explicit question of the poster
Colin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T21:33:27.150Z
Thanks for your answer. I just like Chinese, old and new. Can you tell me please,  in which dialect 饿 is spoken 我？
Pedroski
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T00:19:31.603Z
2017-05-12T00:19:31.603Z
Gestaltfilter
<p>If I look up 饿 in <a href="http://zhongwen.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://zhongwen.com/</a> I find 饿 = 食 + 我。 Further it says, '我 is phonetic'.  </p>

<p>Does this mean that at some time in the past, 我 was pronounced 'è'?</p>

<p>Taken literally, 饿 should then be pronounced 'wǒ', which is not the case.  </p>

<p>The nearest part to 'è' is in 我， 戈 ‘gē’. Is that where the 'è' comes from?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T21:45:44.867Z
Thanks for the link, makes things clear. 饿 is just 1 example. In many other words 'the phonetic part' is not pronounced as it would be on its own in Modern Chinese. I assume that is a pointer at old pronunciations.
Pedroski
<etymology><glyph-origin>
Was 我 pronounced 'è' at some time in the past?
# Was 我 pronounced 'è' at some time in the past?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-05-11)

If I look up 饿 in <http://zhongwen.com/> I find 饿 = 食 + 我。 Further it says, '我 is phonetic'.

Does this mean that at some time in the past, 我 was pronounced 'è'?

Taken literally, 饿 should then be pronounced 'wǒ', which is not the case.

The nearest part to 'è' is in 我， 戈 ‘gē’. Is that where the 'è' comes from?

**Tags:** etymology, glyph-origin

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for the link, makes things clear. 饿 is just 1 example. In many other words 'the phonetic part' is not pronounced as it would be on its own in Modern Chinese. I assume that is a pointer at old pronunciations.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-05-12. Score: 1

Your observation is brilliant. However, there's no easy conclusion.

People summarize the formation of Chinese characters into [six categories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification), namely 象形, 指事, 会意, 形声, 转注, and 假借. For the case of "饿", it's a phono-semantic compound (形声字) made up of "食" -- the semantic part, and "我" --- the phonetic part. Therefore, you may find the pronunciations of 我 and 饿 are **similar**. However, a phono-semantic compound does not necessarily follow exactly the same pronunciation. "我" is a ideograph (指事字), which has a more vague origin for its pronunciation.

The pronunciation of Chinese characters can date back to more than two thousand of years ago. At that time, most researcher now believing, there was no tone system and the words use suffices to identify its speech, etc, like Latin does. It also uses suffices to distinguish between different phono-semantic compound words. For example in [Old Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese), the pronunciations for 我 and 饿 are `/ŋaːlʔ/` and `/ŋaːls/` respectively(from [this](https://ytenx.org/zim?dzih=%E6%88%91%E9%A5%BF&kyonh=1&trngyan=1&tcyts=1&pyonh=1&dciangx=1&jtkb=1&jtdt=1)). It differs so much from modern days, and it developed a long way and changing from time to time. A thousand years later in Tang Dynasty, when we called the language [Middle Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese), the pronunciations of 我 and 饿 changes to `/ŋɑ/` but with different tones (上声 and 去声 respectively).

For 我 and 戈, they have some relationship in terms of origin. In the old days, "我" means one's own country. And country always has armies. "戈" is the arms made up long wooden stick and a metallic blade (see [说文解字](http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/sw/6211.htm)). Today, we can only know that 我 and 戈 shares the same vowel in Middle Chinese, and this is related to the similar syllable coda in Old Chinese. But the root reason of the similarity is still unclear. We still lacking convincing evidences to claim anything. Digging out the pronunciation of two thousand years without any audio documentation is a difficult thing, not to mention the pronunciation system and rules.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Well /ŋaːlʔ/ explains something that puzzled me: In 江苏泰州话，他们用‘n'为’我‘ Now I can guess where that came from! I'm sure the pronunciation of Chinese dates back to the beginnings of language in this region, long before writing. I've never understood how scientists decide how people pronounced words in the distant past!  
> **username_2**: Middle Chinese reconstruction is quite accurate because we have dictionaries from those times + transcriptions of foreign words. Old Chinese is a bit difficult, but good guesses come from comparing with similar shifts and languages (Min, Bai, even Tibetan) that split off earlier.  

---

### Answer by username_3 on 2017-05-12. Score: 0

You are right.
Pronunciation of 饿 came from 我[1]，我 from 俄[2]， and 俄 from 莪(é)[3].

If you are into ancient Chinese, here are two websites I highly recommend.
<http://www.zdic.net/>

<http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en>

references

[1]<http://www.zdic.net/z/28/js/997F.htm>

[2]<http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/kx/6211.htm>

[3]<http://www.zdic.net/z/15/kx/4FC4.htm>

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: by the way, there are some dialects of Chinese in which 饿 is pronounced "wò".  
> **username_4**: -1 for now since this doesn't answer either explicit question of the poster  
> **username_0**: Thanks for your answer. I just like Chinese, old and new. Can you tell me please,  in which dialect 饿 is spoken 我？  

---

