Where is “年” from?

原文来自“每日英语听力”今天更新的内容。加粗部分为句子的主干。

A long long time ago in China, there was a big scary nasty beast named Nian, whose name means year.

中文名：年    英文名：Nian

He had razor-sharp teeth, giant claws, and really mean growl.

Most of the time he lived in the wilderness, but in the darkest night of the year, when the new moon was in the sky, he would sneak into the village and scare everyone inside, even the animals.

People dreaded the new moon for many many years until a wise man taught them the three things Nian was afraid of, loud noises, fire and the color of red.

loud noises, fire, color red

The next time Nian came, the villagers fought back.

They hit their drums as loud as they could, lit every firecracker they had and wore the color red from head to toe.

Nian went far away and never came back.

Nian went away and disappeared.

After that, the people started celebrating the new moon instead of fearing it.

Happy new year！