天

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See also: 夭

Translingual[edit]

Stroke order
天-order.gif
Stroke order
天-bw.png

Han character[edit]

天 (radical 37 大+1, 4 strokes, cangjie input 一大 (MK), four-corner 10430, composition ⿱一大)

Descendants[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  • KangXi: page 248, character 4
  • Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 5833
  • Dae Jaweon: page 500, character 2
  • Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 1, page 522, character 1
  • Unihan data for U+5929

Chinese[edit]

-
simp. and trad.
 天

Glyph origin[edit]

天 天 天 天
Oracle bone script Bronze inscriptions Large seal script Small seal script

A top line representing the level above a man with outstretched arms (大). Ancient representation of the character show a man with a large head, an anthropomorphic representation of heaven.

Original meaning of the word is "sky". Such concept is difficult to depict with a pictogram, hence the current form. Influenced by the glyph, the character was frequently glossed in Old Chinese documents with 顛 ("crown of the head"), and such had led to incorrect hypotheses which regarded 天 as a derivation of 顛 or 巔, "top (of the head/hill)".

Graphical opposite of 立.

Etymology[edit]

This character was previously reconstructed to have a *tʰ-initial in Old Chinese, but this hypothesis has been largely discounted in recent reconstructions, in light of evidence from early Chinese accounts of dialectal pronunciations, transcription of other languages, as well as cognate/derived characters within Chinese, which has all pointed to a voiceless resonant initial *l̥- in Old Chinese. The book Shiming showed that, by c. 200 CE, this initial had already produced dialectal variation in the pronunciation: People in central-western China pronounced it with the back of the tongue, like 顯／显 [*xˤenʔ], while people in eastern China pronounced it with the tip of the tongue, like 坦 [*tʰˤanʔ]. An old northwestern dialect variant survives as 祆 (God of the Zoroastrians) [xen], and the word 天竺 ("India") was used to transcribe Old Persian *Hind-uka ("India").

Further etymology is unknown. While it was reconstructed with a /*tʰ-/ initial, it was frequently compared with tengri, the name for God in early Turkic and Mongolic peoples' languages. This now appears unlikely. The only certain external cognate is the Central Bai (a language closely related to Chinese) word heinl (“sky, heaven”) [xẽ⁵⁵]. 

Pronunciation[edit]

Middle Chinese pronunciation (天, reconstructed)
Character (天), Pronunciation 1/1

Initial: 透 (6)
Final: 先
Division: IV

Openness: Open
Tone: Level (Ø)

 Fanqie: 他前切
Zhengzhang
Shangfang		 Bernard
Karlgren		 Li
Rong		 Pan
Wuyun		 Edwin
Pulleyblank		 Wang
Li		 Shao
Rongfen
/tʰen/ /tʰien/ /tʰen/ /tʰen/ /tʰɛn/ /tʰien/ /tʰɛn/
Old Chinese pronunciation (天, reconstructed)
Baxter-Sagart system 1.1 (2014)
Character Modern Beijing
(Pinyin)		 Middle Chinese Old Chinese English
天 tiān ‹ then › /*l̥ ˤi[n]/ heaven
天 xiān ‹ xen › /*l̥ ˤi[n] (W dialect: l̥ ˤ- > Hàn-time *xˤ- > MC x-)/ heaven

Notes for Old Chinese notations in the Baxter-Sagart system:

  • Parentheses "()" indicate uncertain presence;
  • Square brackets "[]" indicate uncertain identity, e.g. *[t] as coda may in fact be *-t or *-p;
  • Angle brackets "<>" indicate infix;
  • Hyphen "-" indicates morpheme boundary;
  • Period "." indicates syllable boundary.
Zhengzhang system (2003)
Character No. Phonetic
component		 Rime
group		 Rime
subdivision		 Corresponding
MC rime		 Old Chinese Notes
天 12387 天 眞 1 天 /*qʰl'iːn/
Sky.

Definitions[edit]

天

  1. sky
    天黑了。 [MSC, trad. and simp.]
    Tiān hēi le. [Pinyin]
    It got dark (in the evening).
  2. heaven
  3. God
    我的天啊！ [MSC, trad. and simp.]
    Wǒ de tiān a! [Pinyin]
    Oh my God!
    天助自助者。 [MSC, trad. and simp.]
    Tiān zhù zì zhù zhě. [Pinyin]
    God (heaven) only helps those who help themselves.
  4. top, overhead
  5. weather
    如果天晴，我們就去散步。 [MSC, trad.]
    如果天晴，我们就去散步。 [MSC, simp.]
    Rúguǒ tiān qíng, wǒmen jiù qù sànbù. [Pinyin]
    If the weather clears, we'll go for a walk.
  6. † day (24 hours)
  7. † day (as opposed to night)
  8. † season
    • 春天、夏天、秋天、冬天  ―  chūntiān, xiàtiān, qiūtiān, dōngtiān  ―  spring, summer, autumn, winter
  9. nature
  10. natural, innate

Synonyms[edit]

  • 日 ("day (to express date)")

Compounds[edit]

Derived terms

Japanese[edit]

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Kanji[edit]

See also:
天

(grade 1 “Kyōiku” kanji)

  1. heavens, sky
  2. weather
  3. God, Heaven

Readings[edit]

Compounds[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Old Japanese.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

天 (hiragana あま, romaji ama)

  1. (archaic) the sky, the heavens
  2. the area above a kitchen stove:
    1. where the smoke collects in an old kitchen using a wood-burning stove
    2. a shelf or shelves above the stove
  3. (archaic) heaven
Derived terms[edit]
Derived terms

Etymology 2[edit]

From Old Japanese ama (see above). Likely derived by fusion of ama + い (i, emphatic nominative particle), similar to the derivation of other words such as 神 (kami, kamu + i), 目 (me, ma + i), etc.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

天 (hiragana あめ, romaji ame)

  1. (archaic) the sky, the heavens
  2. (archaic) heaven
  3. (archaic) the roof of a palace
Idioms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Derived terms

Etymology 3[edit]

From Middle Chinese 天 (/tʰen/). Compare modern Mandarin 天 (tiān).

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

天 (hiragana てん, romaji ten)

  1. the sky, the heavens
  2. heaven
  3. (metaphorically) the gods, providence, fate
Idioms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Derived terms

Korean[edit]

Hanja[edit]

天 (cheon)
Eumhun:

  • Sound (hangeul): 천 (revised: cheon, McCune-Reischauer: ch'ŏn)
  1. (하늘 천, haneul cheon) sky; heaven; Godhead; tao; etc.

Synonyms[edit]

Antonyms[edit]

Compounds[edit]

Vietnamese[edit]

Han character[edit]

天 (thiên, yêu, quách)

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