This post won’t be speaking of the pros and cons of PRC’s decision to merge「后」with「後」, but rather to give enough background information on what「后」is actually supposed to be, for people to make up their own minds.

Before even diving into paleography, someone who understands multiple Chinese topolects may find something amiss about the words represented by「后」and「後」that are unlike some of PRC’s other mergers.

「后」

Cantonese (Jyutping): hau⁶

Hakka (Sixian, PFS): heu

Min Dong (BUC): hâiu

Min Nan

• (Hokkien, POJ): hiō / hiǒ / hō͘
• (Teochew, Peng'im): hou⁶

Wu: hheu (T3)

Middle Chinese: /ɦəuˣ/, /ɦəuᴴ/

—

「後」

Cantonese (Jyutping): hau⁶

Hakka (Sixian, PFS): heu

Min Dong (BUC): âu / hâiu / hâu

Min Nan

• (Hokkien, POJ): hiǒ / hiō / hō͘ / ǎu / āu
• (Teochew, Peng'im): ao⁶ / hao⁶

Wu: hheu (T3)

Middle Chinese: /ɦəuˣ/, /ɦəuᴴ/

Yes, the readings are practically identical. I suspect that the outlier (Teochew) is a literary reading, and was influenced to some degree by Mandarin Chinese (Could someone who speaks Teochew confirm this?)

If a superficial examination of this kind yields such a similarity, one should seriously consider that the words are etymologically related. But how can queen「后」possibly be related to behind「後」?

Now comes the fun part!

• 「后」is a corruption of「毓」.
• 「毓」depicts a woman「每」(shared etymology & character origins with「母」) giving birth to a child「𠫓」(「子」written upside-down). The rest of the character (something like「川」) depicts amniotic fluid upon giving birth.
• The right hand side of「毓」(Baxter-Sagart OC: /*m-quk/) is intimately connected in both meaning and sound with「流」(/*ru/).
• 「毓」is now written as「育」(to rear, raise > educate).
• 「育」is a total replacement of「毓」. It is derived from a drastically abbreviated「毓」, i.e.「𠫓」, compounded with phonetic「肉」(/*k.nuk/).
• What is now read「后」was originally a semantic reading (訓讀) of「毓」.

The meaning of queen for「后」is then derived from the following extension:

1. Picture of a child being born
2. Descendant (後代, 後裔)
3. Heir (person who inherits the throne)
4. King (This is a Shang or pre-Shang usage)
5. Queen

In Chinese, we have for a very long time seen before as equivalent to in front (前) and after as equivalent to behind. This leads on to the derivation of the meaning behind for「后」, which is very frequently seen in Oracle Bone texts.

1. Descendant (後代, 後裔)
2. Afterwards (temporal sequence)
3. Behind