A character with a dark etymology buried beneath modern usage. Oracle bone 民 originally pictured a person with one eye injured / blinded — a brutal mark that ancient Chinese rulers inflicted on captives or enslaved people to identify them. The original meaning was "the marked / subjugated underclass". Over millennia the dark origin faded and 民 came to mean simply "the common people / the populace". Identical across 繁體 / 新字体 / 简体.

This character is at the political heart of modern East Asian political vocabulary. The People's Republic of China — 中华人民共和国 (Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó) — places 民 prominently. The Republic of China (Taiwan) is 中華民國. 民主 (democracy, "people-rule") is among the politically central concepts of the past 150 years.

Mandarin: mín, rising 2nd tone. 人民 (rénmín, the people — political vocabulary), 民族 (mínzú, ethnic group / nation), 民主 (mínzhǔ, democracy), 农民 (nóngmín, peasant / farmer — politically charged in modern Chinese), 居民 (jūmín, resident), 民间 (mínjiān, civilian / non-government), 民事 (mínshì, civil — as opposed to criminal). 民 is built into modern Chinese citizenship, ethnicity, and legal vocabulary.

Japanese: on-reading ミン (min) is dominant — 国民 (kokumin, citizens / nationals), 民族 (minzoku, ethnic group), 住民 (jūmin, resident), 民主主義 (minshu shugi, democracy), 民間 (minkan, civilian / private sector — used to distinguish from government), 民泊 (minpaku, "people-lodging" — Japan's recently popular AirBnB-style accommodation). Kun-reading たみ (tami, the people) is poetic / archaic — survives in literature and proper names.

Memory aid: an old word for the marked subjugated, now redeemed as "the people" — every modern democracy uses this character.