OSHANIN:1) говорить, сказать (что-л.); гласит следующее..., а именно...; 2) конечная частица в вэньяне, обычно завершает прямую речь или цитату; 3) древн. начальная частица так, вот так; таков; 4) древн. облако, вм. 雲; 5) Юнь (фамилия)
Толкование по Шовэнь:古文省雨.亦古文雲. [575]
Комментарии:The character was the original drawing of *whǝn 'cloud' (see 雲). The meaning "to say" is attested already in inscriptions (see Schüssler 800), and must have been a loan of the character for a word related to 曰 *wat, 謂 *wǝts 'say, speak'. These words have *w- (cf. 曰 Fuzhou uak8, uok8, Jianou ua6; 謂 Xiamen ui6, Fuzhou oi6, Chaozhou ui4), therefore the reconstruction *wǝn seems the most plausible.
During the Eastern Zhou period, however, the character is used only to denote a homonymous modal (?) particle, the meaning of which is much debated. Schüssler (ibid.) thinks it may have been derived from 有 *whǝʔ and mean "there being it, happen that, come to", but most commentators prefer simply to ignore it in translations.