汉字
hàn zì · HSK 1
Chinese character
📝 汉字 = Han (dynasty/Chinese) + 字 (written character)
汉 refers to the Han people/Chinese; 字 means written character or graph. Together: the script of the Han — what English borrows as hanzi, Japanese as kanji, Korean as hanja.
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.