释“尔”

＂尔＂的常用义是第二人称代词你,本义的探源不尽相同,许慎认为＂尔＂本义为疏朗可从。？、迩、？都为尔的后起字,＂尔＂因简化字形与？形近,故尔行？废。后来为了分化字形,在＂尔＂基础上加＂亻＂旁（你）来专门表示第二人称代词。

The Explanation of the Word ＂Er＂（尔）

The word er（尔）＇s common sense is the second person pronoun of you.About its word-formation conception,the explanations were various.Xu Shen＇s consideration that the word er（尔）＇s original meaning was lucid could be accepted.The words of er（爾）、er（迩）and er（沵）were all late-coming words of er（尔）.Because of the simplified font style of er（尔）was similar to e（尒）,the font style of er（尒） was disappeared.But later,in order to divide the font style,the result was to add the radical of ＂亻＂（forming the font of you）basing on the font of er（尔）to express the second person pronoun specifically.