拉合尔 (Lā hé ěr) — Lahore (city in Pakistan)

Definition

noun
Lahore (city in Pakistan)

Examples

  • 拉合尔。
    Wǒ qù nián xià tiān qù le Lā hé ěr.
    I went to Lahore last summer.
  • 拉合尔。
    Lā hé ěr Shì bā jī sī tǎn de dì èr dà chéng shì.
    Lahore is the second largest city in Pakistan.
  • 拉合尔。
    Cóng shǒu dū dào Lā hé ěr zuò fēi jī zhī xū yào yí gè duō xiǎo shí.
    It only takes a little over an hour to fly from the capital to Lahore.

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.

拉lā
合hé
尔ěr

拉合尔 spells Lahore; the characters are only sound marks and carry no meaning 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.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
手手shǒuhand
Sound part声符shēngfú
立
立lì拉lā
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

拉 pairs 手 (hand) with 立, a component that supplies the sound.

Open 拉 →

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

合 shows 亼 and 口 arranged as two mouths speaking together.

Open 合 →

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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