Explore each form from the oldest known stage to today.
The character 口 (kǒu) is one of the oldest and most fundamental Chinese characters, dating back to oracle bone script. It originally depicted a human mouth as a simple square or circle with an opening. In ancient scripts, it often appeared more rectangular or irregular than the modern square form. Over millennia, the character simplified and standardized into its current box-like shape while retaining its core meaning of 'mouth,' 'opening,' or 'entrance.' As a radical, 口 appears in hundreds of characters related to speech, eating, and openings. Arrived in Japan: The character 口 arrived in Japan during the 5th-6th centuries CE, when Chinese writing was systematically introduced to Japan through Korean scholars and Buddhist texts. It was adopted into the Japanese writing system as part of the kanji importation during the Asuka and Nara periods, and appears in Japan's oldest surviving texts like the Kojiki (712 CE) and Man'yōshū (759 CE).