学者
がくしゃ · gakusha · JLPT N3 · noun
scholar
📚🎓 学 (gaku, study) + 者 (sha, person) = a person of study
者 (sha) is the suffix for 'person who does X'. You'll see it in 医者 (isha, doctor = medicine + person) and 記者 (kisha, reporter = record + person). So 学者 is the person whose job is study: a scholar.
学 — hands 𦥑 + roof 冖 + child 子
Originally 學, depicting two hands manipulating something (often interpreted as counting rods or the 爻 trigram symbols) under a roof, with a child 子 below — a child learning under instruction. The simplified form 学 replaces the top with a stylized 龸. Core meaning has always been 'to study, learn'.
者 — old/elder 耂 + say 曰
Originally depicted sugarcane or a similar plant, but the form was reanalyzed as 耂 (old) over 曰 (say). It became a grammatical suffix meaning 'one who…' or 'the…thing,' nominalizing verbs and adjectives. Today 者 mainly marks agents or categories, as in 学者 'scholar' or 记者 'reporter.'