干吗
gàn má · HSK 3
see 幹嘛|干嘛[gan4 ma2]
❓ 干 (do) + 吗 (question particle) = doing what?
Variant of 干嘛. 干 means do/work, 吗 marks a question. Together: what are you doing? or why? Often a casual or slightly annoyed what's up?
干 — pictograph of a forked weapon/shield
干 originally depicted a forked wooden weapon or shield used in ancient warfare, giving the early sense of 'to offend' or 'to oppose.' Over time it took on extended meanings like 'to concern' and 'trunk/stem.' In modern simplified Chinese it also absorbed 乾 (dry) and 幹 (to do; trunk), so one character now covers several unrelated words.
吗 — mouth radical 口 + horse 马 (phonetic)
吗 is a phono-semantic compound. The mouth radical 口 signals it relates to speech, while 马 (mǎ) supplies the sound. It is a modern grammatical particle used to turn a statement into a yes/no question, with no pictographic meaning of its own.