jiā
noun #17,353

Meanings

  1. 1 phonetic character used in transliterations

Examples

HSK 4
Tā zàidú yīběn guānyú Jiā yè de shū.
He is reading a book about Kashyapa.
HSK 7-9
Shìjiāmóuní shì Fójiào de chuàngshǐrén.
Shakyamuni is the founder of Buddhism.

Tips

usage
appears almost exclusively in Buddhist transliterations: 释迦 (Shakya), 迦叶 (Kashyapa), 迦南 (Canaan). It has no standalone meaning in modern Chinese.

Components

radical
chuò
walk; advance (motion radical)
Bottom-left walk radical, side-form of - a foot at a crossroads. The indexing radical, but here pure tradition rather than meaning: many transliteration characters chose to suggest 'come from afar,' fitting for imported Sanskrit names entering China along pilgrimage routes.
phonetic
jiā
to add
Upper-right supplies the sound jiā with no shift - a clean phonetic. has no meaning of its own; it exists almost entirely as a transliteration character for Sanskrit syllables in Buddhist texts (释迦 Shakya, 迦叶 Kashyapa). The phonetic does all the work here.

Stroke Order

jiā