Several parts combine into one character.

The character for "salt" is one of the most divergent across CJK regions, with three completely different scripts. The traditional 鹽 is a multi-component compound ideograph: 臣 (overseer) + 皿 (vessel / dish) + 鹵 (salt grains depicted as small dots in a container). The composite captures an entire scene: an overseer monitoring the harvest of salt crystals into vessels at a salt farm. This complexity reflects salt's historical importance as a state-monopolized commodity in imperial China.

Three CJK regions then diverged: Korea retains 鹽; Japan adopted shinjitai 塩 (土 earth + 口 + 皿); Mainland China simplified to 盐. Same concept, three radically different visual signatures — one of the clearest examples of CJK script fragmentation.

Korean reading "yeom." 鹽分 (yeombun, salt content — used on Korean nutrition labels: "sodium content"), 鹽田 (yeomjeon, salt field — Korean traditional sea-salt evaporation pans, especially in Sinan and Yeongam), 食鹽 (sigyeom, table salt), 岩鹽 (amyeom, rock salt — Himalayan pink salt 히말라야 암염 imported from Pakistan), 海鹽 (haeyeom, sea salt). Korean (cheonil-yeom, "thousand-day salt") — sun-evaporated sea salt — is a prized traditional product.

Mandarin yán, 2nd tone (simplified 盐). 盐 (yán, salt), 食盐 (shíyán, table salt), 盐田 (yántián, salt field), 海盐 (hǎiyán, sea salt), 咸盐 (xiányán, salty salt). The Chinese state historically monopolized salt production for tax revenue; the term 盐税 (yánshuì, salt tax) was a major budget category from the Han dynasty until 1949.

Japanese on-reading エン (en) — 塩分 (enbun, salt content / sodium intake — major Japanese health vocabulary given high traditional salt consumption), 食塩 (shokuen, table salt). Kun-reading しお (shio) — 塩 (shio, salt), 塩漬け (shiozuke, "salt-pickled" = salt-preserved foods), 塩辛い (shiokarai, salty), 塩焼き (shioyaki, "salt-grilled" = a Japanese cooking technique where fish is sprinkled with salt and grilled, popular for fresh sea bream and mackerel).

Memory aid: same "salt," three different shapes — Korea 鹽, Japan 塩, Mainland China 盐. The traditional form encoded an entire salt-farming scene; the simplifications reduced it to bare essentials.