吾
- I, me;
- first-person pronoun;
Etymology
Phono-semantic compound:
口 (mouth, speech) – semantic, relating to speaking or self-expression
五 (five; phonetic element) – provides sound value
Originally indicated “my speech,” i.e. self-reference, which extended to the meaning “I” or “myself.”
Semantic range:
- I, me (first-person singular, especially in Classical Chinese);
- we, us (in compounds, e.g., 吾等 “we”);
- archaic: self, personal identity;
- rare variant meanings: “you” (in certain dialectical or obsolete texts), or place names.
Usage in Korean
In Korean, 吾 survives in historical texts (e.g., 기미독립선언서 - the Korean Declaration of Independence), but today 我 is better known.
吾人 (오인) – we, us (formal, literary)
吾等 (오등) – we, us (collective self-reference; famously in the Korean Declaration of Independence, 1919)
Additional notes
吾 was not the earliest “I” in Chinese; in Shang–Western Zhou texts, 余 or 予 were dominant. 吾 rose in usage during Eastern Zhou–Warring States and was gradually supplanted by 我 during the Han dynasty.
In Classical Chinese philosophy (Confucian, Daoist), 吾 often appears in introspective phrases such as 吾日三省吾身 (“I examine myself three times a day”).
In modern Chinese, 吾 survives mostly in set phrases, historical/poetic usage, and compounds (吾輩, 吾人). In colloquial use, 我 is overwhelmingly dominant.
OCR (optical character recognition) sometimes misreads 吾 as 品, leading to false readings in digitized documents.