手紙
てがみ · tegami · JLPT N5 · noun
letter
✉️ 手紙 = hand + paper: paper written by hand
手 (te) means hand and 紙 (kami) means paper; kami softens to gami inside the compound. A letter is literally hand-paper. Beware: the same characters in Chinese (手纸) mean toilet paper.
手 — pictograph of a hand with five fingers
手 is a pictograph showing an open hand with fingers and a wrist. Early bronze and oracle bone forms clearly depict five splayed fingers, which simplified over time into the modern shape. It keeps its original meaning of 'hand' and also serves as a radical in many characters related to hand actions.