A Cool Compound with 仰

仰天 (gyōten: being amazed, being horrified, being taken aback)
     to look up at + heavens

Cool, huh? I imagine that when people of old were amazed or horrified, they looked up at the heavens, wondering how the gods could have created something so incomprehensible—something so amazing or horrible.

In the two compounds we’ve seen 仰 has a different yomi and meaning:

仰天 (gyōten: being amazed, being horrified, being taken aback)     to look up at + heavens
信仰 (shinkō: (religious) faith, belief)
     to have faith + to revere

Both GYŌ and KŌ are on-yomi of 仰. How does one kanji accrue two or three on-yomi with similar pronunciations? Now that the book is out, I can share an explanation with you. At the linked PDF, see the section called “Importing a Writing System.” It starts on page 36 and ends on page 37. (This is one of several sample pages to which I’ve linked.)

If you have young eyes, you can also see the pages by enlarging the image below:

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