赞比亚 (Zàn bǐ yà) — Zambia

Definition

noun
Zambia

Examples

  • 赞比亚。
    Wǒ míng nián xiǎng qù Zàn bǐ yà lǚ yóu.
    I want to travel to Zambia next year.
  • 赞比亚。
    Zàn bǐ yà De shǒu dū shì lú sà kǎ.
    The capital of Zambia is Lusaka.
  • 赞比亚。
    Zhōng guó hé Zàn bǐ yà yì zhí bǎo chí yǒu hǎo guān xì.
    China and Zambia have always maintained friendly relations.

Origin

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.

赞zàn
比bǐ
亚yà

The characters 赞比亚 only spell the foreign name Zambia and carry no separate meanings here.

Sound-only characters

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 贊; 赞 is its simplified writing.

The simplified 赞 stands for more than one traditional character. In most words (称赞, 赞赏) it is 讚; in others (赞成, 赞同) it is 贊.

  • 㚘㚘㚘
  • 貝貝bèimoney

This note is about the traditional form 贊. It pairs 㚘 with 貝 (money) for helping with money; the simplified 赞 is a shorthand.

Open 赞 →

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

  • 匕匕bǐ
  • 匕匕bǐ

比 is two 匕 placed side by side. Chu Wan-li treats both as sound parts, while an old reading takes the side-by-side arrangement as putting things next to each other.

Open 比 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 亞; 亚 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 亞 likely shows an overhead view of a construction, perhaps a 亞-shaped tomb. Its later simplified form 亚 is just a shorthand.

Open 亚 →

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