他

Han character

他 (Kangxi radical 9, 人+3, 5 strokes, cangjie input 人心木 (OPD), four-corner 2421₂, composition ⿰亻也)

Glyph origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 / 形声, OC *l̥ʰaːl): semantic 亻 (“man”) + phonetic 也 (OC *laːlʔ).

Corrupted form of 佗 (OC *l̥ʰaːl, *l'aːl), which is found in Zuozhuan.

Etymology

Etymology not clear (Schuessler, 2007). Perhaps cognate with 誃 (OC *l'al, *l̥ʰjalʔ, “to separate”).

The modern sense of "he, she, it" only emerged after the Han period in colloquial passages, and displaced classical 其 (OC *ɡɯ) and 之 (OC *tjɯ) in mandarin dialects. (Pulleyblank, 1995)

The phonological development from Middle Chinese was irregular. The expected reflex is tuō, which is sometimes used in literary contexts for the classical "other" sense, but in most Mandarin dialects it is read like tā.

Pronunciation

Definitions

他

1. (chiefly Mandarin, Jin, Xiang, dialectal Wu, originally gender-neutral; nowadays usually referring to males) he; him; she; her

   他去了。  ―  Tā qù le.  ―  He went away.

   我認識他。／我认识他。  ―  Wǒ rènshi tā.  ―  I know him.

   • 萬物是藉著他造的；凡被造的，沒有一樣不是藉著他造的。 [MSC, trad.]
     万物是借着他造的；凡被造的，没有一样不是借着他造的。 [MSC, simp.]

     From: 新標點和合本 (Chinese Union Version with New Punctuation), 約翰福音 (John) 1:3

     Wànwù shì jièzhe tā zào de; fán bèi zào de, méiyǒu yī yàng bùshì jièzhe tā zào de. [Pinyin]

     All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

   • 他也不怕狼蟲，不懼虎豹，登上山頂上觀看。 [Written Vernacular Chinese, trad.]
     他也不怕狼虫，不惧虎豹，登上山顶上观看。 [Written Vernacular Chinese, simp.]

     From: Wu Cheng'en, Journey to the West, 16^th century CE, translation from The Journey to the West (2012), by Anthony C. Yu

     Tā yě bù pà lángchóng, bù jù hǔbào, dēng shàng shāndǐng shàng guānkàn. [Pinyin]

     Since he was afraid neither of wolves and lizards nor of tigers and leopards, [he] went straight to the mountaintop to look around.

   • 我這女學生名叫黛玉。他讀書，凡『敏』字，他皆念作『密』字；寫字，遇著『敏』字亦減一二筆。 [Written Vernacular Chinese, trad.]
     我这女学生名叫黛玉。他读书，凡『敏』字，他皆念作『密』字；写字，遇著『敏』字亦减一二笔。 [Written Vernacular Chinese, simp.]

     From: Cao Xueqin, Dream of the Red Chamber, mid-18^th century CE

     Wǒ zhè nǚxuéshēng míng jiào Dàiyù. Tā dú shū, fán ‘mǐn’ zì, tā jiē niàn zuò ‘mì’ zì; xiě zì, yù zhù ‘mǐn’ zì yì jiǎn yī'èr bǐ. [Pinyin]

     My current girl-pupil – named Daiyu, whenever she reads, she pronounces every character mǐn (敏 "hasty") as mì (密 "honey"); whenever [she] writes, [she] lessens every character 敏's number of strokes by one or two.

2. A dummy pronoun. Compare object pronoun 之 (zhī)

   Alternative form: 它

   睡他個昏天黑地／睡他个昏天黑地  ―  shuì tā ge hūntiānhēidì  ―  one sleeps in the dark

3. other; another

   別無他求／别无他求  ―  bié wú tā qiú  ―  have no other request (formal)

4. a surname

Compounds

Descendants

• Wutunhua: ta (“he; she; it”)

References

• “他”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎, 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–