一家
いっか · ikka · JLPT N3 · noun
family
🏠 一家 = one + house: everyone under one roof is one family
一 (いち, one) + 家 (か, house). いち + か fuse into いっか, ikka: the small っ doubles the k. The same 家 appears in 家族 (kazoku, family), and 一家 can also mean a whole clan or household.
一 — single horizontal stroke
一 is one of the simplest pictographs in Chinese, depicting a single horizontal line to represent the number one. It has retained essentially the same form since oracle bone script over 3,000 years ago. By extension it also means 'first,' 'whole,' or 'same.'
家 — roof 宀 + pig 豕
Originally a pictograph of a pig under a roof, since domesticated pigs were kept in or under the home in ancient China. Over time the meaning broadened from 'household' to 'family,' and by extension 'home' or a specialist (as in 专家, 'expert').