Phonetic+Elements

Phonetic Elements in Chinese Characters Although Chinese is widely thought to be a language without phonetic elements - owing to characters and lacking an alphabet or syllabary - in fact 85% of the Chinese characters in use today do contain a phonetic element. It is important to realize, however, that they are neither consistent nor reliable, and also carry no tone information. In terms of how they came about, there are six different types of Chinese characters. Amongst the characters in common use today, however, some 85% of them were formed by putting together a radical, or meaning element, with a phonetic, or sound element. For example, the radical for woman 女 nǚ was paired with the sound element 马 mǎ (horse) to create a new character meaning mother 妈 mā, because the word for mother had the same pronunciation as the word for horse. In the same way, the mouth radical 口kǒu was also paired with the sound element 马 mǎ to create the character 吗 ma, used to denote a question. Note that tones were not taken into account, and that over time the pronunciation of many characters have changed, so for example the common sound element 工 gōng can be ‘hóng 红,’ ‘kòng 空’ or ‘gōng 功’ today. Also note that it is not uncommon to see a phonetic element in a character that is not pronounced that way.

While Chinese is not considered by most people to be a phonetic language – and indeed strictly speaking it is not - sound elements have had an essential role in the creation of characters.

Reference: Table of 800 phonetic elements. Table of 169 phonetic element with characters, by radical.

Table The following table uses one phonetic element, 青 qīng, to demonstrate this. Every character contains this element, and all are pronounced either qing or jing. Note there is no consistency in either the pronunciation (qing vs jing) nor in the tones.

The other part of the character is the radical, which carries the meaning element of the character. (The meaning of the radical is underneath each entry.) Coincidentally, 青 is also a radical.


 * 青 qing1 green, young || 情 qing2 sentiment || 清 qing1 clear up, settle ||
 * || (heart) || (water) ||
 * 請 qing3 request || 晴 qing2 fine, clear || 鯖 qing1 mackerel ||
 * (language) || (sun) || (fish) ||
 * 蜻 qing1 dragonfly || 凊 qing4 cold, cool || 圊 qing1 toilet ||
 * (insect) || (ice) || (border) ||
 * 精 jing1 refined || 靜 jing4 still, quiet || 睛 jing1 eyeball ||
 * (rice) ||  || (eye) ||
 * 菁 jing1 lush, luxuriant || 靖 jing4 pacify || 婧 jing4 modest,supple ||
 * (grass) || (stand) || (woman) ||
 * 箐 jing1 flower of leek || 靚 jing4 make up || 鶄 jing1 water bird ||
 * (bamboo) || (see) || (bird) ||
 * 鼱 jing1 shrew ||