字母
zì mǔ · HSK 4
letter
🔤 字母 = character + mother; 'mother characters' = alphabet letters
字 means written character and 母 means mother. Together they name the 'mother letters' that birth all words — the alphabet. Chinese reuses 母 for base/source units (e.g. 字母 letter, 声母 initial consonant).
字 — roof 宀 + child 子
Originally depicted a child 子 under a roof 宀, suggesting birth or rearing a child in the home. The meaning later extended to 'to give birth, nurture' and then to 'written character', since characters were seen as offspring derived from earlier pictographs.
母 — pictograph of kneeling woman with two breast dots
母 is a pictograph derived from 女 (woman) with two added dots representing breasts, marking a nursing mother. The earliest oracle bone forms show a kneeling figure with prominent dots on the chest. The meaning has stayed remarkably stable, denoting 'mother' and by extension 'female' or 'source/origin'.