讀

The character appears to be composed of 言 (“speech”) + 賣 (“to sell”), and is a phono-semantic compound.

However, there is an important historical reason why it is read as dok and not mae. In fact, this character was not originally formed from 言 + 賣. A comparison of clerical script (隸書 lìshū) forms shows this clearly.

독서 (讀書) – reading books

구절두 (讀) – rare, archaic reading for “passage”

강독 (講讀) – to read aloud and explain

암독 (暗讀) – silent reading

독자 (讀者) – reader

In certain fonts, this can be recognized even without comparing clerical forms, since the right-side component of 讀 was actually 𧶠, an archaic character called 팔 육 (yù). Over time, 𧶠 fell into disuse, and in later scripts its shape became nearly identical to 賣, leading to confusion.