代言人
dài yán rén · HSK 7
spokesperson
🎤 dai-yan-ren = substitute + speech + person = someone who speaks on behalf
代 means substitute or represent, 言 means speech or words, 人 means person. Together: the person who speaks as a representative — a spokesperson.
代 — person radical 亻 + 弋 (stake/dart, phonetic)
代 is a semantic-phonetic compound: 亻 (person) gives the meaning and 弋 supplies the sound. The original sense was one person taking the place of another, which broadened to 'substitute,' 'replace,' and then 'generation' or 'era' — successive groups of people replacing the previous.
人 — pictograph of a standing person
人 is a pictograph showing a person viewed from the side, with two strokes representing the legs and torso of a standing human. In oracle bone script it clearly depicted a figure leaning slightly forward. The meaning has remained 'person' or 'human' throughout its history.