<p>I'm going to give a simple answer first - I'm sure better more complete answers will come to follow.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.outlier-linguistics.com/collections/chinese/products/outlier-dictionary-of-chinese-characters" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Outlier</a></strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>FORM</strong><br />
難 nán (also nàn) is composed of 堇 jiān and 隹 “bird,” which hints at the original meaning “type of bird.” 堇 gives the sound.</p>
<p><strong>COMPONENTS</strong><br />
堇<br />
In 難 nán (also nàn), 堇 jiān is a sound component, though this is not obvious in modern Mandarin.<br />
隹<br />
In 難, 隹 “bird” is a meaning component, hinting at the original meaning “type of bird.”</p>
<p><strong>MEANINGS</strong><br />
nán</p>
<p>1 (orig.) name of a type of bird<br />
2 ○ difficult<br />
3 → trouble; adversity</p>
<p>nàn<br />
1 (orig.) name of a type of bird<br />
2 ○ difficult<br />
3 → disaster; catastrophe</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There's also a variant character:  (⿰鳥, if it doesn't display with you) which quite explicitly shows it's avian connection.</p>
<p>Outlier's reference comes from p. 307 &amp; 308 of 季旭昇's《說文新證》- this is where we will see the connection between the variant  and 難:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/grp7b.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/grp7b.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a>
<a href="https://i.sstatic.net/pToMj.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/pToMj.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<p>Here the ○ icon in Outlier's definition is an indicator of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Rebus_(phonetic_loan)_characters" rel="nofollow noreferrer">phonetic loan</a>. So, basically it is just a:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>character that is &quot;borrowed&quot; to write another homophonous or near-homophonous morpheme</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and this is confirmed by《說文新證》's:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>假借</p>
</blockquote>
<p>explanation.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>隹 replaces ---&gt; 鳥</p>
</li>
<li><p>堇 was seemingly always there giving the character its sound</p>
</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>&quot;⿰x&quot; being replaced by &quot;⿰又x&quot; is a separate question but it's not totally uncommon, think: 艱 → 艰.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-10T03:42:03.883Z
Thanks for answering the bird part being borrowed. What about the 堇 or  part? Were these 2 characters effectively the same?
Fishuman
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-11T20:33:32.137Z
I don't know if those two characters were used as loans of each other, but they were each originally made to represent different things. For , please see this [Quora post](https://www.quora.com/q/chinesecharacters/The-function-of-%E9%BB%91-and-its-derivatives-as-a-character-component). As for 堇, I think it originally meant clay, consisting of semantic 土 and phonetic . Since  is phonetic in 堇, it seems reasonable for variants of 難 to use  and 堇 as phonetic components.
wang_xiao_ming
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-11T20:38:52.137Z
And while 難 originally referred to some kind of bird, it may not be a coincidence that 難 was later borrowed to mean difficult or hardship, given its semantic similarity with  (i.e. 難 may have been deliberately picked as a loan to mean difficult since it contains ), but hopefully someone else who is more informed can provide some insight on this point.
wang_xiao_ming
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-04T11:53:52.960Z
2020-12-04T12:41:33.630Z
2020-12-04T12:41:33.630Z
Mou某
<p>Apologies if my question is too similar to the one in
<a href="https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5029/why-is-the-radical-of-%E9%9A%BE-%E9%9A%B9-and-not-%E5%8F%88">Why is the radical of 难 &gt; 隹 and not 又?</a>
The link in there is broken unfortunately and I am unable to find the source.</p>
<p>This character for difficult, 难/難 is traditionally comprising of phonetic /堇, and the 隹 semantic which is a bird. However, it seems like there is also semantic explanation for the /堇 component, which closely resembles 黃, being a man with difficulty breathing/hyperinflated lungs in the middle part and a wheezing mouth being the top part that looks like 廿. This also makes sense for other “difficult” related words with /堇 phonetic, like 嘆 and 艱, which coincidentally all have been simplified to 又.</p>
<p>Thus, my question is: did 难/難 use to be a type of bird? What kind of bird was it, and when did it start replacing  as loan?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-07T01:27:41.543Z
"" 是 "漢" 字的右半边，"漢"和"難"的声母都是 an，我感觉""是表声音的部分。
Zhang
<etymology><glyph-origin><character-components>
 and 難 glyph origins. Did 难/難 used to be a bird?
#  and 難 glyph origins. Did 难/難 used to be a bird?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-12-04)

Apologies if my question is too similar to the one in
[Why is the radical of 难 > 隹 and not 又?](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5029/why-is-the-radical-of-%E9%9A%BE-%E9%9A%B9-and-not-%E5%8F%88)
The link in there is broken unfortunately and I am unable to find the source.

This character for difficult, 难/難 is traditionally comprising of phonetic /堇, and the 隹 semantic which is a bird. However, it seems like there is also semantic explanation for the /堇 component, which closely resembles 黃, being a man with difficulty breathing/hyperinflated lungs in the middle part and a wheezing mouth being the top part that looks like 廿. This also makes sense for other “difficult” related words with /堇 phonetic, like 嘆 and 艱, which coincidentally all have been simplified to 又.

Thus, my question is: did 难/難 use to be a type of bird? What kind of bird was it, and when did it start replacing as loan?

**Tags:** etymology, glyph-origin, character-components

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: "" 是 "漢" 字的右半边，"漢"和"難"的声母都是 an，我感觉""是表声音的部分。  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2020-12-04. Score: 3

I'm going to give a simple answer first - I'm sure better more complete answers will come to follow.

**[Outlier](https://www.outlier-linguistics.com/collections/chinese/products/outlier-dictionary-of-chinese-characters)**

> **FORM**  
> 難 nán (also nàn) is composed of 堇 jiān and 隹 “bird,” which hints at the original meaning “type of bird.” 堇 gives the sound.
>
> **COMPONENTS**  
> 堇  
> In 難 nán (also nàn), 堇 jiān is a sound component, though this is not obvious in modern Mandarin.  
> 隹  
> In 難, 隹 “bird” is a meaning component, hinting at the original meaning “type of bird.”
>
> **MEANINGS**  
> nán
>
> 1 (orig.) name of a type of bird  
> 2 ○ difficult  
> 3 → trouble; adversity
>
> nàn  
> 1 (orig.) name of a type of bird  
> 2 ○ difficult  
> 3 → disaster; catastrophe

There's also a variant character: (⿰鳥, if it doesn't display with you) which quite explicitly shows it's avian connection.

Outlier's reference comes from p. 307 & 308 of 季旭昇's《說文新證》- this is where we will see the connection between the variant and 難:

> [![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/grp7b.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/grp7b.png)
> [![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/pToMj.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/pToMj.png)

---

Here the ○ icon in Outlier's definition is an indicator of a [phonetic loan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Rebus_(phonetic_loan)_characters). So, basically it is just a:

> character that is "borrowed" to write another homophonous or near-homophonous morpheme

and this is confirmed by《說文新證》's:

> 假借

explanation.

* 隹 replaces ---> 鳥
* 堇 was seemingly always there giving the character its sound

---

"⿰x" being replaced by "⿰又x" is a separate question but it's not totally uncommon, think: 艱 → 艰.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for answering the bird part being borrowed. What about the 堇 or  part? Were these 2 characters effectively the same?  
> **username_3**: I don't know if those two characters were used as loans of each other, but they were each originally made to represent different things. For , please see this [Quora post](https://www.quora.com/q/chinesecharacters/The-function-of-%E9%BB%91-and-its-derivatives-as-a-character-component). As for 堇, I think it originally meant clay, consisting of semantic 土 and phonetic . Since  is phonetic in 堇, it seems reasonable for variants of 難 to use  and 堇 as phonetic components.  
> **username_3**: And while 難 originally referred to some kind of bird, it may not be a coincidence that 難 was later borrowed to mean difficult or hardship, given its semantic similarity with  (i.e. 難 may have been deliberately picked as a loan to mean difficult since it contains ), but hopefully someone else who is more informed can provide some insight on this point.  

---

