黃

There are two main theories about its origin:

First theory:

The character originally depicts an emperor wearing a jade ornament (佩玉, paeok), and thus originally meant "jade ornament".

From this came the derived meaning of "emperor" (皇帝).

The meaning “yellow” later developed because such ornaments were often golden in color.

As the color meaning became dominant, a new character 璜 (with the jade radical 玉 on the left) was created to preserve the original meaning of "jade ornament".

Second theory:

The character is a pictograph of a hunchbacked figure.

This theory began with Tang Lan (唐蘭), who cited a passage from The Book of Rites (《禮記·檀弓》) that says:

"Heaven has withheld rain for a long time—how about exposing the hunchback (尫) to sunlight?"

Tang claimed that 黃 was originally the same as 尫 (crippled person).

Later, scholar Qiu Xigui (裘錫圭) argued that the small seal script form of 交 in the Shuowen Jiezi was actually an early form of 黃, and that oracle script forms interpreted as 烄 (fire-related) should actually be read as ⿱黃火—representing a ritual burning of the hunchback in human sacrifice.

Over time, the character’s meaning shifted through associations with a sickly yellow face, ultimately settling on the meaning “yellow.”

According to this interpretation, 黃 shares etymological roots with components like 𦰩, which appears in characters such as:

難 (difficult)

嘆 (to sigh)

The character 黃 also came to refer to infants or very young children, especially those under the age of 4. This sense appears in historical phrases like 黃口簽丁 (registering children as adult males for taxation/military), where 黃口 ("yellow mouth") refers to a child, based on the idea that young children have yellowish hair.

In modern usage, the word “yellow” (누런색) often implies a dull or muddy shade, but originally it simply meant the color yellow, without negative connotations.