他们

Etymology & Components

The Chinese word 他们 (tāmen) means "they" and is used to refer to a group of people. It is composed of two characters: 他 (tā), which means "he" or "she", and 们 (men), which is a plural suffix. The character 他 is derived from the ancient Chinese character 亻(rén), which represents a person, and the character 戈 (gē), which represents a weapon. This combination suggests that the original meaning of 他 was "a person who uses a weapon", or a warrior. Over time, the meaning of 他 expanded to include all males, and eventually became the pronoun "he". The character 们 is derived from the ancient Chinese character 們 (mén), which represents a group of people. This character is often used as a plural suffix in Chinese, and can be added to nouns to indicate that there are multiple of them. In the case of 他们, the addition of the plural suffix 们 to the character 他 indicates that the word is referring to a group of people, or "they".