卡塔尔 (Kǎ tǎ ěr) — Qatar

Definition

noun
Qatar

Examples

  • 卡塔尔。
    Kǎ tǎ ěr Shì zhōng dōng de yí gè guó jiā.
    Qatar is a country in the Middle East.
  • 卡塔尔。
    Wǒ péng you qù nián qù Kǎ tǎ ěr lǚ yóu le.
    My friend went to Qatar for tourism last year.
  • 卡塔尔。
    Kǎ tǎ ěr De shǒu dū shì duō hā.
    The capital of Qatar is Doha.

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.

卡kǎ
塔tǎ
尔ěr

卡塔尔 spells the foreign name Qatar; the characters carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

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

卡 is made from 上 (up) and 下 (down), with their horizontal lines fused, showing something squeezed between above and below.

Open 卡 →

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
土土tǔ
Sound part声符shēngfú
荅
荅dá塔tǎ
Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

塔 shows 土 (earth) for the meaning and 荅 (dá) for the sound.

Open 塔 →

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

假借jiǎjièLater borrowed for its sound alone — the picture has nothing to do with today’s meaning.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 爾; 尔 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 爾, simplified as 尔, originally drew cloth on a loom with crossing threads. It was borrowed for its sound to write “you,” so the picture is unrelated to that meaning.

Open 尔 →

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