Explore each form from the oldest known stage to today.
The character 言 (yán) originally depicted a tongue emerging from a mouth, symbolizing speech and words. In oracle bone script (c. 1600-1046 BCE), it showed a mouth with lines representing sound or speech emerging. During the Bronze script era, the character became more stylized, with the mouth element at the bottom and the 'sound' lines above. By the Small Seal script period (221-206 BCE), it had evolved into the recognizable form we see today. The character fundamentally means 'speech,' 'words,' or 'to speak,' and serves as a radical in many characters related to language and communication. Arrived in Japan: The character 言 arrived in Japan around the 5th century CE, during the period when Chinese writing was introduced to Japan through Korean scholars and Buddhist texts. It became incorporated into the Japanese writing system as a kanji, retaining its meaning of 'words' or 'to say,' and is pronounced as 'gen' (as in 言語 - gengo - language) or 'gon' (as in 言葉 - kotoba - word), or 'iu' in its verb form.