漢字Kanji · in Human Body & People
何: what
亻 carries the meaning · 可 gives the sound
Bronze · Zhou Today
Bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Three readings, and the words that use each
カka · on'yomi · in compounds
- 幾何学きかがくgeometry
なにnani · kun'yomi · on its own
- 何なにwhat
- 何色なにいろwhat color
- 何しろなにしろat any rate, anyway
- 何かなにかsomething
なんnan · kun'yomi
- 何分なんぷんhow many minutes
- 何時なんじwhat time
- 何回なんかいhow many times
- 何百なんびゃくhundreds
- 何度もなんどもmany times
- 何才なんさいhow old
Also read なに-, なん-, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Ideogrammic compound (會意)人 person (meaning) + 戈 dagger-axe (sound)
In the oracle bone script, a pictogram (象形): a man carrying something on their shoulder – the original form of 荷 (“to carry”).
Source: Wiktionary, 何 (rev. 93876625), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“See the person standing tall, ready to interact with the world! When this radical appears on the left, it signals that the kanji describes a human quality, a social relationship, or an action that people perform.”
Connections
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · hé
Same form: 何 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 何 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 何 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin hé most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.