漢字Kanji · in Human Body & People
我: ego, I
Also: selfish, our, oneself
丿 and 戈 carry the meaning · 亅 is drawn in
Oracle bone · Shang Today
Oracle bone: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Three readings, and the words that use each
ガga · on'yomi · in compounds
- 我流がりゅうone's own style
- 我欲がよくselfishness
- 自我じがself, ego
- 無我むがselflessness
- 怪我けがinjury
- 我慢するがまんするendure, put up with
われware · kun'yomi · on its own
- 我われI, self, oneself, ego
- 我々われわれwe
わが-waga- · kun'yomi
- 我が家わがやour house, our home
- 我が国わがくにour country, our land
Also read わ, わが-, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Pictogram (象形)
A pictogram (象形) of a trident-like weapon or tool (note the oracle bone script form 𢦐). conjecture about its similarity to a kind of three-bladed polearm found at archaeological sites. It was already borrowed for sound as an instance of jiajie (假借) for the pronoun 我 (“I”) since the oracle bone script.
Source: Wiktionary, 我 (rev. 93556183), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Originally a picture of a weapon with a jagged, saw-toothed blade. Its sound was borrowed to write the word for "I, oneself," as in 自我 (the self).”
Connections
Also read ガ
9 kanji share this on'yomiEasy to confuse
The difference, side by sideIn ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · wǒ
Same form: 我 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 我 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 我 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin wǒ most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.