歎

Phono-semantic compound combining:

欠 (to exhale, sigh, yawn) — semantic component

難 (difficult; hard) — phonetic component

The character depicts breath released from the mouth under emotional strain, especially when faced with hardship or sorrow. From this image comes the meanings to sigh, to lament, and to exclaim emotionally.

탄식 (歎息) — sigh; lament

한탄 (恨歎) — bitter lament

감탄 (感歎) — admiration; exclamation

탄원 (歎願) — lamenting plea

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

歎 is a character expressing deep emotional release through breath—sighing, lamenting, or exclaiming.

Relation with 嘆:

歎 emphasizes emotional breath or exhalation, while 嘆 emphasizes vocal expression via the mouth radical.

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.

Related characters:

嘆 — to sigh; to lament (mouth-focused variant)

息 — breath; sigh

哀 — sorrow

悲 — grief

慨 — indignation; deep emotion

Classical citations:

《論語》 (The Analects)

「子不歎不言」

“The Master did not speak in sighs or lamentations.”

歎 expresses emotional utterance, often discouraged in Confucian self-discipline.

《杜甫》 (Du Fu)

「長歎息以掩涕兮」

“I sigh deeply and cover my tears.”

歎 commonly appears paired with 息 (breath) in poetic lament.

In Buddhist texts 歎 is frequently used in 찬탄(讚歎):

- praising the Buddha or the Dharma aloud

- emotional exclamation may be sorrowful or reverential