哈萨克 (Hā sà kè) — Kazakh (ethnicity or language); Kazakhstan

Definition

Refers to the Kazakh people, their Turkic language, or Kazakhstan as a place — the same word covers ethnicity, language, and country.

noun

Kazakh (ethnicity or language)Kazakhstan

Single-morpheme word

构词法gòucífǎ

音译yīnyìTransliteration

The characters spell the sound of a foreign word; their individual meanings play no part.

哈, 萨, and 克 spell the foreign name Kazakh; they have no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

口合哈

Meaning part形符xíngfú

口口kǒumouth

Sound part声符shēngfú

合

The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

哈 uses 口 (mouth) to show a mouth-related idea, and 合 as a sound part. The shape of 合 may look like two open mouths, but that is likely by chance.

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Appears in