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by 9nGQluzmnq3M 2124 days ago
As always, Chinese takes this to the next level, since there are historical characters for which both meaning and pronunciation have been lost.

A famous one is 篪, used exactly once in the Classic of Poetry (1000 BC), whose meaning was unknown until another text surfaced describing it as a type of flute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon#Chinese_and_Ja...