歎

Phono-semantic compound combining:

欠 (흠, “to yawn, to open the mouth”) – provides the meaning (relating to sighing, exhaling);

𦰩 – provides the sound.

The explanation in the Kangxi Dictionary (강희자전) is as follows:

歎 【玉篇】他旦切【唐韻】【集韻】【韻會】他案切, all pronounced tan. 【說文】“To chant or hum.” 【禮·檀弓】“He mournfully sighed.” 【疏】“歎 means a sighing breath. When resentment or grief deepens, sighing arises naturally.” 【禮·曲禮】“Do not sigh when eating, do not sigh when enjoying music.”

Also, “to call something beautiful” is expressed with 歎. 【禮·郊特牲】“When the final cup was finished and the music ended, Confucius sighed repeatedly.” 【註】“Here 歎 means to admire beauty.”

Also, it means “to praise or harmonize,” describing drawing out the final note of a song to assist it. 【禮·樂記】“One lead chant and three sighs.” It is interchangeable with 嘆.

It appears in compounds such as 歎息 (탄식, “sigh, deep sigh”) and 恨歎 (한탄, “lament, bitter sigh”).

In Korea, the Korean Language Society (어문회) assigns 歎 to level 4 and 嘆 to jun-special level (준특급), effectively considering 嘆 a variant of 歎. In the official hanja list for classical Chinese education, only 歎 is included.

In the Standard Korean Language Dictionary (표준국어대사전), for many hanja compounds containing “탄,” both 嘆 and 歎 are listed as acceptable characters.

In Simplified Chinese, both characters are merged into the single simplified form 叹.

In Japan, only 嘆 is included in the Jōyō kanji list (the official set of commonly used kanji).

嘆

In classical Chinese, the character 歎 usually had a positive nuance and was used with meanings such as “to admire” or “to marvel at.”

The character 嘆, on the other hand, tended to have a negative nuance, used for “to lament” or “to sigh in grief.”

However, this was not always strictly observed, and the two characters were often used interchangeably.

In modern times, the two characters are largely treated as variants of one another.