Translingual

Han character

讀 (radical 149 言+15, 22 strokes, cangjie input 卜口土田金 (YRGWC), four-corner 0468₆, composition ⿰言賣)

References

• KangXi: page 1185, character 27
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 36088
• Dae Jaweon: page 1649, character 9
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 6, page 4029, character 1
• Unihan data for U+8B80

Chinese

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 讀
Large seal script	Small seal script

Phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *l'oːɡ) : semantic 言 ‎(“to say”) + phonetic 𧸇.

Etymology 1

“To say aloud, to tell” (Shijing) > “to recite” > “to read”.

Cognate with Tibetan ཀློག་པ ‎(klog pa, “to read; to recite”). Starostin sets up Proto-Sino-Tibetan *k-lok ‎(“to recite; to give notice”) for this, and also includes Burmese လျှောက် ‎(hlyauk, “to tell; to ask; to petition; word-for-word translation; indiscriminately”) and Mizo thlûk ‎(“accent, tone, intonation”). Related to 讟 (OC *l'oːɡ, “resentment, slander < to grumble; complaint”).

Sagart (1999) argues that “read” cannot be the primary meaning, since existence of the concept “to read” before the invention of writing is questionable. There is likely no writing at the time of the split between Chinese and other Sino-Tibetan languages, therefore the Tibetan word may represent a borrowing from Chinese.

Pronunciation

Definitions

讀

1. ^† to say aloud; to tell
2. to read (silently); to peruse

   Synonyms: 看 (kàn)

   讀書 / 读书  ―  dúshū  ―  to read; reading

   閱讀 / 阅读  ―  yuèdú  ―  to read

   • 這篇文章值得一讀。 [MSC, trad.]
     这篇文章值得一读。 [MSC, simp.]

     Zhè piān wénzhāng zhíde yī dú. [Pinyin]

     This article is worth reading.

3. to read aloud; to read out

   朗讀 / 朗读  ―  lǎngdú  ―  to read aloud

4. to study

   讀大學 / 读大学  ―  dú dàxué  ―  to study at a university

5. to pronounce (a character, a word, etc.)

   Synonyms: 唸／念 (niàn)

   這個字怎麼讀？ / 这个字怎么读？  ―  Zhège zì zěnme dú?  ―  How do you pronounce this character?

6. pronunciation

   讀音 / 读音  ―  dúyīn  ―  pronunciation (of characters)

   異讀 / 异读  ―  yìdú  ―  variant pronunciation

   文讀 / 文读  ―  wéndú  ―  literary reading

Etymology 2

A late attested reading. Starostin thinks it is from the *-s pronunciation of Etymology 1.

Pronunciation

Definitions

讀

1. short pause in reading

   句讀 / 句读  ―  jùdòu  ―  periods and commas, sentences and phrases

Compounds

Japanese

Kanji

(uncommon “Hyōgai” kanji, kyūjitai kanji, shinjitai form 読)

1. 読: to read

Readings

• On: とく (toku), とう (tō), どく (doku)
• Kun: よむ (yomu)

Usage notes

Very rarely used. Superseded by the shinjitai form.

Korean

Hanja

讀 • ‎(dok, du) (hangeul 독, 두, revised dok, du, McCune-Reischauer tok, tu, Yale tok, twu)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Compounds

Vietnamese

Han character

• Hán Việt: độc, đọc, đậu, đặt

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