家 — Home or family

Start with home or family, then read the whole word. Knowing 家 as the family kanji does not explain every compound, or multi-character word. In Chinese, 画家 means painter, while 道家 names the Daoist school of thought. Neither is a kind of house.

Why is 家 a pig under a roof?

The pairing is ancient; its original reason is less certain. Recognizable ancestors appear in bronze inscriptions and divination inscriptions on bones and shells from China’s Shang period. Later writing styles developed into the modern arrangement of 宀, roof, over 豕, pig.

One familiar explanation connects the pig to domestic life: keeping pigs inside a dwelling could suggest an inhabited home. That is an interpretation, not a settled origin story. Over time, the dwelling sense broadened to family and lineage, then occupational households, schools of thought, and specialists.

How is 家 read in Japanese and Korean?

The same character has different readings in each language. Japanese uses いえ (ie, house or home) and うち (uchi, home), with other readings in compounds. It also appears in words for family lines and established schools. Korean Hanja—Chinese characters used in Korean—reads 家 as 가 in household and kin-group terms.

If someone sends only 家, ask for the original phrase when the distinction matters. “Home” or “family” is a reasonable first pass; a specialist meaning needs the surrounding word.