咱

The Chinese character 咱 (zán) is a first-person plural pronoun that is used in spoken Chinese. It is composed of two parts: the radical 人 (rén), which means "person", and the phonetic component 乍 (zhà), which is a variant of the character 炸 (zhà), which means "to explode". The combination of these two components suggests the idea of "many people coming together".The character 咱 first appeared in the oracle bone script during the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600-1046 BC). It was originally used as a third-person plural pronoun, but over time it gradually came to be used as a first-person plural pronoun. This shift in usage is thought to have occurred because the character 咱 was often used in informal speech, where the distinction between first-person and third-person pronouns is often less important.Today, the character 咱 is still used in spoken Chinese, but it is considered to be a colloquialism. It is not used in formal writing, and it is not taught in schools. However, it is still a useful character to know, as it is often used in everyday conversation.