人
- human, person;
Etymology
In regular script (楷書, kǎishū), the character 人 (saram in, “person”) appears to depict a person standing with legs spread apart.
However, if you look at its form in oracle bone script (甲骨文, jiǎgǔwén), it's actually a pictograph of a person standing in profile with arms hanging down.
The long vertical strokes seen in seal script (篆書, zhuànshū) are simply an evolved and lengthened depiction of the arms.
The character basically means "person."
However, during the Shang dynasty, it referred only to the ruling class, while the ruled/common people were referred to as 民 (min).
In classical Chinese, when 人 appears with 己 (gi, “oneself”), the interpretation is:
己 = “I” (first person)
人 = “the other” (someone else)
Even when not paired with 己, in about 8 out of 10 cases, 人 in classical texts means someone else, not oneself.
In fiction, the character 人 used in words like "murder case" or "character" refers not only to humans as a species, but to any sentient being/personality.
Therefore, if the character involved is a sentient being (e.g., a humanoid alien), it’s appropriate to use 人-related terms like 살인사건 (murder case) or 등장인물 (character).
But if the entity is not a sentient being, then it may be more appropriate to use “thing” words, like 등장견 (“appearing dog”), for example.
Usage in Korean
This is a fundamental and highly important character, used in countless terms and compounds, including as a suffix (~인) meaning "person".
When used as a side component (left radical), it becomes 人 → 亻, known as “saram-in-byeon”.
Alongside the water radical 氵, it is one of the most important and frequent radicals.
There are other variants of the person radical too:
𠆢, used at the top of characters, such as in 合 (hap)
Though not often used as an official radical, it's a very common component
人, when moved to the upper part of a character, often becomes the form ⺈
Additional notes
The character 人 is used as part of the notation system to represent the 0th octave in pitch.
Alternative forms
Characters with 人
- 億 — a hundred million, 100.000.000, hundred-millionth;
- 企 — to plan, to strive for, to stand on tiptoe, to hope/aspire;
- 代 — to substitute, to replace, era, generation;
- 侍 — to serve, to attend;
- 件 — item, matter, case;
- 假 — false, fake, temporary, to borrow;
- 低 — low, to be low, lower than;
- 介 — to be between, to insert, mediate;
- 個 — individual, single unit;
- 便 — convenient, comfortable, excrement;
- 係 — to tie, to be tied, to connect, to relate;
- 作 — to make, to build, to create, composition;
- 仁 — benevolence, kindness, humaneness;
- 依 — to rely on, to depend on, to lean on;
- 人 (O)
- ⿸ 丿 ㇏
