衣阿华 (Yī ā huà) — Iowa (U.S. state)

Definition

noun

Iowa (U.S. state)

衣阿华。
Yī ā huà Shì měi guó zhōng xī bù de yí gè zhōu.
Iowa is a state in the Midwestern United States.
衣阿华。
Tā qù nián cóng Yī ā huà bān dào le niǔ yuē.
He moved from Iowa to New York last year.
衣阿华。
Yī ā huà De nóng yè fēi cháng fā dá.
Iowa's agriculture is very developed.

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.

衣阿华 simply spells the foreign name Iowa; the characters carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The shape of 衣 comes from an outline of the chest and upper clothing.

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

Meaning part形符xíngfú

阜阜fù

Sound part声符shēngfú

可

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

The part 阜 points to a mound, and 可 gives the pronunciation; 阿 originally meant a big mound.

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 華; 华 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 華 showed flowers on a plant, with stalk and leaves below. The simplified 华 is a later shorthand and not the original picture.