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然

然 U+7136, 然
CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-7136
← 焵
[U+7135] 		CJK Unified Ideographs 焷 →
[U+7137]

Contents

TranslingualEdit

Stroke order
 
Stroke order
 

Han characterEdit

然 (radical 86, 火+8, 12 strokes, cangjie input 月大火 (BKF), four-corner 23333, composition ⿱肰灬)

Derived charactersEdit

ReferencesEdit

  • KangXi: page 675, character 12
  • Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 19149
  • Dae Jaweon: page 1086, character 20
  • Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 3, page 2213, character 5
  • Unihan data for U+7136

ChineseEdit

simp. and trad.
 然
variant forms 𤉷

Glyph originEdit

Historical forms of the character 然
Warring States Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han) Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Bronze inscriptions Small seal script Transcribed ancient scripts
     
Characters in the same phonetic series (肰) (Zhengzhang, 2003) 
Old Chinese
嘫 *rneːn
然 *njen
肰 *njen
繎 *njon, *njen
燃 *njen
蹨 *njenʔ, *neːnʔ
橪 *njenʔ, *ʔneːn
撚 *neːnʔ

Phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *njen): phonetic 肰 (OC *njen, “dog meat”) + semantic 火 (“fire”) – to burn. Also ideogrammic compound (會意). The derivative 燃 (OC *njen) stands for the original word in Modern Chinese.

Note that the upper left component is analyzed as 肉 (meat), and in the component 肰 it is drawn as a tilted 月 (“moon”), appearing more like 夕 (“evening”) with an extra stroke; compare 祭, 將.

PronunciationEdit

  • Dialectal data▼
Variety Location 然
Mandarin Beijing /ʐan³⁵/
Harbin /ʐan²⁴/
Tianjin /ian⁴⁵/
/ʐan⁴⁵/
Jinan /ʐã⁴²/
Qingdao /iã⁴²/
Zhengzhou /ʐan⁵³/
/ʐan⁴²/ ～而
Xi'an /ʐã²⁴/
Xining /ʐã²⁴/
Yinchuan /ʐan⁵³/
Lanzhou /ʐɛ̃n⁵³/
Ürümqi /ʐan⁵¹/
Wuhan /nan²¹³/
Chengdu /zan³¹/
Guiyang /zan²¹/
Kunming /ʐã̠³¹/
Nanjing /ʐaŋ²⁴/
Hefei /ʐæ̃⁵⁵/
/ʐən⁵⁵/
Jin Taiyuan /zæ̃¹¹/
Pingyao /ʐɑŋ¹³/
Hohhot /ʐæ̃⁵³/
Wu Shanghai /zø²³/
Suzhou /zø¹³/
Hangzhou /zz̩ʷõ²¹³/
Wenzhou /ji³¹/
Hui Shexian /ie⁴⁴/
Tunxi /iɛ⁴⁴/
Xiang Changsha /yẽ¹³/
Xiangtan /iẽ¹²/
Gan Nanchang /lɛn⁴⁵/
Hakka Meixian /ian¹¹/
Taoyuan /ʒen¹¹/
Cantonese Guangzhou /jin²¹/
Nanning /jin²¹/
Hong Kong /jɐn²¹/
Min Xiamen (Min Nan) /lian³⁵/
Fuzhou (Min Dong) /yoŋ⁵³/
Jian'ou (Min Bei) /iŋ²¹/
Shantou (Min Nan) /ziaŋ⁵⁵/
Haikou (Min Nan) /zin³¹/
Rime
Character 然
Reading # 1/1
Initial (聲) 日 (38)
Final (韻) 仙 (77)
Tone (調) Level (Ø)
Openness (開合) Open
Division (等) III
Fanqie 如延切
Reconstructions
Zhengzhang
Shangfang 		/ȵiᴇn/
Pan
Wuyun 		/ȵiɛn/
Shao
Rongfen 		/ȵʑjæn/
Edwin
Pulleyblank 		/ȵian/
Li
Rong 		/ȵiɛn/
Wang
Li 		/ȵʑĭɛn/
Bernard
Karlgren 		/ȵʑi̯ɛn/
Expected
Mandarin
Reflex 		rán
Baxter–Sagart system 1.1 (2014)
Character 然
Reading # 1/1
Modern
Beijing
(Pinyin) 		rán
Middle
Chinese 		‹ nyen ›
Old
Chinese 		/*[n]a[n]/
English so, thus; (adv suffix)

Notes for Old Chinese notations in the Baxter–Sagart system:

* Parentheses "()" indicate uncertain presence;
* Square brackets "[]" indicate uncertain identity, e.g. *[t] as coda may in fact be *-t or *-p;
* Angle brackets "<>" indicate infix;
* Hyphen "-" indicates morpheme boundary;

* Period "." indicates syllable boundary.
Zhengzhang system (2003)
Character 然
Reading # 1/1
No. 10756
Phonetic
component 		肰
Rime
group 		元
Rime
subdivision 		2
Corresponding
MC rime 		然
Old
Chinese 		/*njen/

DefinitionsEdit

然

  1. † so; thus; in this manner; like this
    • 然後 / 然后  ―  ránhòu  ―  then [lit. after things turn out this way]
    • 不然  ―  bùrán  ―  or else, otherwise [lit. not so]
    • 非然也。 [Classical Chinese]  ―  Fēi rán yě. [Pinyin]  ―  It is not so. / That is not how it is.
  2. † Suffix forming adverbs, sometimes also adjectives, with an abstract meaning of “in the manner of, like”.
    • 顯然 / 显然  ―  xiǎnrán  ―  apparently, obviously
    • 果然  ―  guǒrán  ―  as expected [lit. as a result]
    • 龐然大物 / 庞然大物  ―  pángrándàwù  ―  giant, something enormous [lit. a bigly big thing]
    • 喟然長嘆 / 喟然长叹  ―  kuìránchángtàn  ―  to sigh (with 喟 being an onomatopoeia)
  3. † but

CompoundsEdit

Derived terms from 然

JapaneseEdit

KanjiEdit

然

(grade 4 “Kyōiku” kanji)

  1. suffix after nouns to express likeness
  2. so, be as it is
  3. however (as shikashi)
  4. a certain thing

ReadingsEdit

CompoundsEdit

Compounds

EtymologyEdit

Kanji in this term
然
ぜん
Grade: 4
on’yomi

From Middle Chinese 然 (nyen, “-like”).

PronunciationEdit

SuffixEdit

然 (hiragana ぜん, rōmaji -zen)

  1. Indicates a state (no specific semantic content)

ReferencesEdit

  • Halpern, Jack: New Japanese-English Character Dictionary -Kenkyusha 1990

KoreanEdit

HanjaEdit

然 • (yeon) (hangeul 연, revised yeon, McCune–Reischauer yŏn, Yale yen)

  1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

VietnameseEdit

Han characterEdit

然 (nhiên, nhen, nhơn)

  1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
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