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In Traditional Chinese, Japanese kyūjitai, Korean hanja, the component 𦰩 for this character is written with 廿 on top. Note that the bottom portion is written 口 overlapped by 夫 and not 中 on top of 天.
In Vietnamese Hán Nôm, 𦰩 can be written with 廿, 龷, or 艹 on top. But the most common variant of 𦰩 is with 龷 written on top.
In Japanese shinjitai, the component 𦰩 is written with 艹 on top and has one stroke less. Due to Han unification, both traditional Chinese and Japanese shinjitai forms are encoded under the same code point. The appearance of this character will differ depending on the font used.
In Simplified Chinese, the component 𦰩 is simplified to 又 instead, giving the character 汉 (U+6C49).
Two compatibility ideographs exist for this character. U+FA47 corresponds to the kyūjitai form of this character while U+FA9A corresponds to the alternative form used in North Korea which is similar to Japanese shinjitai.
Phono-semantic compound (形聲/形声, OC *hnaːns) : semantic 水(“water”) + abbreviated phonetic 暵(OC *hnaːnʔ, *hnaːns) or 熯 (or 難 according to Xu Shen) – name of a river in China (漢水 or 漢江). Xu Shen links the third contracted phonetic component to the ancient variant 灘. The component to the left as a result of a contraction appears as a variant of 堇, which is the pictogram of a man burned alive as a sacrifice. It is partly unclear whether or not the phonetic component also suggests a morphological feature of the Han river (e.g., a dry river or a river that flows with difficulty) or simply indicates part of the pronounciation; Xu Shen puts no explanation.
A second ancient variant of the character reported by Xu Shen is 㵄 (perhaps analyzable as 淢 and 大).
The usage for the Chinese ethnicity first appeared during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, claiming the Han dynasty as one of the golden ages of Chinese history. Before the Han dynasty, the Chinese referred their land as 華夏 ("Huaxia"), and themselves as 諸華 ("various Hua people") or 諸夏 ("various people/descendants of the Xias"). "Xia" ("Summer; great, splendid") also gave the name to the first semi-legendary Chinese dinasty, the Xia Dinasty (夏朝).
When asking about the name of the current dynasty, it became apparent that they did not know about the Han Dynasty, much less the Wei or Jin Dynasties.
uch that peace may be assured and restored to the people and country, all while retaining the complete territorial integrity of the lands of the five races—Manchu, Han, Mongol, Hui, and Tibetan—which shall combine to form a great Republic of China.
莆田市政协文化文史和学习委员会 , editor (2021), “汉”, in 莆仙方言大词典 [Comprehensive Dictionary of Puxian Dialect] (overall work in Mandarin and Puxian Min), Xiamen University Press, →ISBN, page 257.
Originally referred to the Gaya confederacy, an independent state in the south of the Korean peninsula in the years 42–562 CE. Over time, the meaning extended to refer in general to the Korean peninsula and China, expanding further just before and during the Edo period to refer to foreign lands in general.[2][3]
Alternative forms
(usually China in the Tang dynasty, and foreign lands in general):唐
Chinese-style poetry (as opposed to formal waka Japanese-style poetry), Chinese-style poetry, deep-fried chicken or fish (a style introduced by Europeans in the 1600s), “Chinese voice” → the kan'on or Chinese-derived reading for a character
From Old Japanese, in reference to clans purportedly originating from China.[2][4][3] Appears to be cognate with 文 / 紋 / 綾 / 絢(aya, “a pattern or design; a pattern of diagonally interweaving lines; twill; how something fits together, the reason or background of a thing; skillful expression in color or words; melody, tune”), possibly in distant reference to technologies and cultural practices brought to Japan by the original Chinese immigrants.
short for漢氏(Aya uji): name of one of two ancient clans, purportedly descendants from Han Chinese, and notable historically for major achievements in fields including literature, diplomacy, and finance, among others
Rare alternative spelling for 男(otoko, “man”), from usage in Chinese to differentiate between the “civilized” people of the Han Chinese ethnicity versus other ethnic groups.
See the 男 entry for the derivation of the reading.