Dì is the modern Mandarin Chinese pronunciation. The Old Chinese pronunciation has been reconstructed as *lˤej-s. The Chinese character 地 is a phono-semantic compound, combining the 土 radical ("earth", "dirt") with the (former) sound marker 也 (Modern Chinese yě, Old Chinese *lajʔ). As 埊, it was one of the characters briefly affected by Wu Zetian's short-lived character reforms.