Explore each form from the oldest known stage to today.
Historical forms are not available yet. The current form is shown as a reference.
The kanji "鶏" is a phono-semantic compound, formed by combining a semantic component with a phonetic one. The right side, "奚" (kei), primarily provides the sound but also carries a connotation of "servant" or "bound person," hinting at the domestication of the bird. The left side, the radical "鳥" (tori), meaning "bird," was added later to explicitly categorize the character within the avian family. This character evolved from a more pictographic predecessor. Its historical development begins in ancient China with the oracle bone script character "雞," which was a vivid pictograph of a chicken. This early form depicted a bird with a large crest (the comb) and a spur on its leg, with "奚" sometimes seen as a hand holding a rope, further emphasizing its status as a tamed creature. Over centuries, through the bronze script and clerical script stages, the pictographic elements stylized and standardized. The form "鶏" emerged as a common variant, which was later adopted as the standard in Japan. The character, along with the vast majority of the kanji system, was introduced to Japan from China, most significantly between the 5th and 8th centuries via Korean peninsula intermediaries and direct cultural exchange. It entered the Japanese language as a logographic representation of the native word "niwatori" (庭鳥, meaning "garden bird"). A key linguistic note is that the modern Japanese reading is a mix: the borrowed Chinese-derived reading is "kei" (as in "鶏肉" - keiniku, chicken meat), while the native Japanese kun'yomi is "niwatori." Culturally, the rooster is a significant symbol in Japan, associated with dawn and the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu, as its crow is believed to summon the sun.