Chinese Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Chinese language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Most sources I can find say that 讀 (读) is a phonosemantic compound (形聲), where 言 is the semantic component and 賣 is the phonetic component.
However, the pronunciation of 賣 (mài) does not resemble 讀 (dú) at all, even in Middle Chinese (賣 /mai/; 讀 /duk/) or Old Chinese (賣 /mreːs/; 讀 /l'oːɡ/).
What is the purpose of the 賣 component in the character 讀?
well, 賣(u+8ce3) is sell; while 𧶠(u+27da0) is pronounced as "育".
left is 賣(u+8ce3), right is 𧶠(u+27da0), note the difference of the middle component:
well, in the past, 賣(u+8ce3) is for 買賣 (buy & sell) only. other characters e.g., 讀, 贖, 覿, 續 are using 𧶠(u+27da0).
so, 讀 as a phonosemantic compound character is, combined "言" & 𧶠(u+27da0); that's why it's 屋韻﹒徒谷切
somewhere in time, the 𧶠(u+27da0) is less used, and 賣 is more "popular"; which causes confusing.
"賣" / mai4 / and "𧶠"/du2/ have different sound
瀆 as in 自瀆 /du2/
犢 as in 初生之犢 /du4/
讀 as in 讀書 /du2/
they are all phonically similar
from http://www.shuowen.org/view/1489
从言。𧶠聲。
from http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&char=%F0%A7%B6%A0&remap=gb
《康熙字典》.... 𧶠中从囧，非𧶠字也。
It said the middle of 𧶠 is 囧, it is not the the word "𧶠"(sell) (I think it meant not the word "賣" )
