Second character from the top left.
Character existed since the Shang dynasty.
The more I look at it, the more it looks like not only is that person resting under a roof, he’s obviously taking a nap.
I thought that person was praying…
He’s obviously performing squats. It’s leg day.
The original character, often seen in 騶虞 (/*[ts]ˤro [ŋ]ʷ(r)a/) might have meant lion, and was just another way to write 狻猊 (/*[tsʰ]u[r] ŋe/), which would make it a phonetic borrowing of the Proto-Indo-Iranian *ćárguš, and making the term a cognate of the English word jackal.
It went the the same sound changes as 娛. The 吳 phonetic compound was originally something like /*[ŋ]ʷ(r)a/ in Old Chinese. So Taigi’s giâ as in giâ-kang (蜈蚣) and ngôo as in the surname Ngôo (吳) is a lot closer to OC. In OC, all of these characters would have been pronounced the same.
I guess the split between 吳 and the other class of 虞 and 娛 began in Middle Chinese with characters like 吳 with a mid vowel, like /ɔ/, and 娛, 虞 with a close vowel, like /u/.
In Mandarin, the ŋ initial was lost, and a chain shift happened where the 吳 characters moved to close vowel, and 娛, 虞 fronted, giving them that /y/ vowel.
That’s definitely the kind of dragon China have always aspired to be.
I always forget how to pronounce 翟 zhai? It iis only used as a lastname. When it’s a part of 耀, it sounds nothing like its stand alone version.
That’s the character in Zhaishan Tunnel in Kinmen, right? Easy to remember for me. 
I just looked up the etymology of 翟, and realized it is still cognate with 曜, 耀, 躍 and 濯, tracing all the way back to the earliest Trans-Himalayan. You’d get words related in Tibetan and Burmese. How they sound so different is beyond me. These characters are also related to words like 雉, 霍, 狄, 爚, 爍, 灼, and… 的.
They all supposed to sound something like tik at a time when the characters were being created. Most of them still sound like tik in Taigi today, including 翟.
𦻠 - Accidentally typed this character out. Without zooming in I can’t even be sure it’s a Hanji.
夒 - Just saw a video by SwedishSinologyNerd on the etymology of 猴 monkey in Chinese. Apparently 夒 is the original character and perhaps word for monkey in Chinese. So 猴 is originally 沐猴 which was /*mə-ɡˤ(r)o/ (沐猴) in OC, while 夒 was /*nˤu/ in OC.
The oracle bone script for 夒 was:
The character is literally a monkey smelling its finger.
杓, looks simple enough, shao2, how hard is it?
Well… it’s also supposed to be pronounced as biao, di2, di4, zhuo5, diao3. If we look at the rhyme books, Mandarin pronunciation should also include diao4, piao.
WTF…
Oh yeah, the reason it’s also pronounced as diao3 is that 杓 is like the handle for a ladle, and 屌 is the handle for a lad.
棹
guess how this seemingly innocuous character is pronounced?
zhuo like 桌? wrong
zhuo2 like 卓? wrong again
dao4 like 悼? nope
diao4 like 掉 ? getting further away
chuo4 like 綽? couldn’t be more wrong
棹 zhao4, as in 罩
before opening the spoiler, I go with zhuo2
but zhuo1 also seems to be used, when it’s used for “table”
Yeah, I should have clarified that. Then again, why use 棹 for table when you already have 桌?
It just goes to show how messed up the phonetic component of 卓 ended up being.
| Hanji | Taigi | Mando |
|---|---|---|
| 卓 | toh | zhuo2 |
| 桌 | toh | zhuo |
| 棹 | toh/tsāu | zhuo/zhao4 |
| 悼 | tō | dao4 |
| 掉 | tiāu/tiō | diao4 |
| 綽 | tshiok | chuo4 |
| 罩 | tà/tàu | zhao4 |
to emphasize that a table is made of wood?
Then, let me introduce you to the even more redundant 槕