What is the phonetic component of 斜?

Question

Again, during my kanji reviews, I encountered 斜. Remembering its kunyomi is not difficult because it's the most common word associated with this kanji (at least based on my reviews); its onyomi, however, always slips my mind.

I checked what kind of kanji 斜 is and it said that it's 形声. I assume that the right component is the phonetic component, but I checked the kanjis with 斗 and none of them have シャ as an onyomi.

Is this a case similar to 侮辱、後悔、海外 where the first kanji 侮 somehow changed its sound in Chinese before being imported to Japanese?

Answer 1

The kanji has changed its sound long before importation into Japanese.

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「[斜]{しゃ}」 (Zhengzhang OC: /*lja/, to scoop/ladle) is comprised of semantic 「斗」 (picture of a ladle > unit of measure for liquids) and phonetic 「[余]{よ}」 (/*la/). You can take the modern meaning, slanted, to be a phonetic loan.

_{*The unit of measure for liquids might also be seen with the kanji 「升」. Indeed, 「升」 was originally 「斗」 with dots added, indicating that the ladle was full of liquid.}

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Putting aside characters directly containing 「[余]{よ}」 (e.g. [途]{と}, [除]{じょ}), the exact shape 「余」 has undergone quite a few sound shifts and graphical corruptions in other kanji. You might find some more correspondences with 「[斜]{しゃ}」 in those changes; even though 「[余]{よ}」 itself appears to be rather far phonologically from 「[斜]{しゃ}」, the characters containing variants of 「余」 may still be fairly close in sound to 「斜」.

Observe the glyph evolution of 「余」, and then compare:

• 「余」 is the bottom component of 「[茶]{ちゃ}」, which was originally written as 「荼」.
• 「余」 was originally the top component of 「[舍]{しゃ}」 (Shinjitai: 「舎」).
• 「余」 is sometimes corrupted into 「佘」 to produce a phonetic indicator 「[示]{し}」. In rare circumstances, you might come across a character containing 「佘」; their on'yomi would be something like 「[賒]{しゃ}」.