Han ideograph 亇

Its meaning depends on the writing tradition. In Chinese, 亇 is a written variant of 個, the everyday word or classifier for one person or item. Korean sources using Hanja (Chinese characters in Korean texts) and kwukyel (a historical way of marking Korean grammar with Chinese characters) assign it the reading 마, meaning “hammer.” Vietnamese chữ Nôm, a historical Vietnamese writing system, uses it for cá, “fish,” and as a reading mark.

These are distinct traditional uses, not one meaning shared across languages. The surrounding script and source decide which one fits, so identify the source before translating.

What is 亇's history in Chinese and Vietnamese?

Its Chinese form evolved through earlier written forms. A variant-character corpus cites the Yuan-era printed drama collection 古今雜劇 as evidence for 亇. Taiwan's Ministry of Education traces it to a written variant of 箇: one diagonal stroke was straightened and a vertical stroke became a hook. It served as an alternate way to write 個, rather than introducing a new meaning.

Vietnamese Nôm adds a separate local use. A 2017 proposal about Vietnamese reading marks in Unicode, the standard for digital text, documents 亇 as the cá reading mark and cites an 1872 edition of Truyện Kiều, a Vietnamese narrative poem. Nôm dictionaries also list 亇 for cá, “fish.” The Chinese relationship among 亇, 箇, and 個 does not make the Korean or Vietnamese readings interchangeable.