尼泊尔 (Ní bó ěr) — Nepal

Definition

noun
Nepal

Examples

  • 尼泊尔麓。
    Ní bó ěr Shì yí gè wèi yú xǐ mǎ lā yǎ shān nán lù de guó jiā.
    Nepal is a country located on the southern side of the Himalayas.
  • 尼泊尔，。
    Tā qù nián qù Ní bó ěr lǚ xíng, kàn dào le měi lì de xuě shān.
    She traveled to Nepal last year and saw beautiful snowy mountains.
  • 尼泊尔。
    Ní bó ěr De shǒu dū shì jiā dé mǎn dū.
    The capital of Nepal is Kathmandu.

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.

尼ní
泊bó
尔ěr

The characters carry no meaning of their own here; the word spells the name Nepal.

Sound-only characters

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

The shape draws one person sitting on or leaning against another person, giving the sense of stopping close to someone.

Open 尼 →

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
水水shuǐwater
Sound part声符shēngfú
白
白bái泊bó
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The 水 part shows water. The 白 part gives the sound, and the picture is of a ship staying still after running aground in shallow water.

Open 泊 →

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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