The Chinese character ?/? (pronounced yì) means justice; righteousness; or meaning. The traditional form is based on the radical ? (yáng - meaning sheep). The bottom half of ? is the character ?(wo) which is the personal pronoun "I".

So how does the combination of "I" and "sheep" become "justice"? According to Fun With Chinese Characters, justice is the power to tame individual aggression (represented by ? which is a hand holding a spear), so that the human becomes as docile as a sheep.

A more prosaic explanation is that ? is a pictophonetic character, with ? providing the meaning, and ? providing the sound.

Mandarin Vocabulary With Yì

Traditional Characters	Simplified Characters	Pinyin	English
??	??	yìwù	duty; obligation; commitment
??	??	yìfèn	righteous indignation; moral indignation
??	??	yìli	doctrine (esp. religious); argumentation (in a speech or essay)
??	??	yìyì	meaning; significance
??	??	zhèngyì	justice; righteous; righteousness
??	??	jiangyì	teaching materials
??	??	zhuyì	-ism; ideology
??	??	qiyì	uprising; insurrection; revolt
????	????	bài jin zhu yì	money worship
????	????	bèi xìn qì yì	break faith with somebody
??	??	bian yì	derogatory sense
????	????	gòng chan zhu yì	communism
????	????	làng màn zhu yì	romanticism
???	???	tóng yì zì	synonym