苏伊士 (Sū yī shì) — Suez (the Suez Canal in Egypt)

Definition

noun

Suez (the Suez Canal in Egypt)

苏伊士。
Sū yī shì Yùn hé lián jiē dì zhōng hǎi hé hóng hǎi.
The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas.
苏伊士。
Sū yī shì Yùn hé shì yà zhōu hé fēi zhōu de fēn jiè xiàn.
The Suez Canal is the dividing line between Asia and Africa.
苏伊士。
Měi nián dōu yǒu hěn duō chuán tōng guò Sū yī shì yùn hé.
Every year many ships pass through the Suez Canal.

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.

The characters 苏伊士 spell the foreign name Suez and carry no meaning of their own.

Sound-only characters

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 蘇; 苏 is its simplified writing.

The simplified 苏 stands for more than one traditional character. In most words it is 蘇; in others it is 甦 or 囌.

Meaning part形符xíngfú

艸艸cǎograss; plant

Sound part声符shēngfú

穌

穌sū蘇Sū

Same sound today

The traditional form 蘇 uses 艸 (grass; plant) for meaning and 穌 for sound; the simplified 苏 is a later shorthand.

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

亻尹伊

Meaning part形符xíngfú

亻Written in full as人rénperson

Sound part声符shēngfú

尹

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

The left part 亻 shows a person. The right part 尹 is used for the sound.

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

The shape 士 comes from a simple drawing of a war axe. The character later came to mean a soldier, officer, or intellectual.