萨那 (sà nā) — Sana'a, capital of Yemen

Definition

noun

Sana'acapital of Yemen

萨那，。
sà nā Shì yě mén de shǒu dū, lì shǐ yōu jiǔ.
Sana'a is the capital of Yemen, with a long history.
萨那。
Wǒ míng nián dǎ suàn qù sà nā lǚ yóu.
I plan to travel to Sana'a next year.
萨那。
sà nā Wèi yú ā lā bó bàn dǎo nán bù.
Sana'a is located in the southern Arabian Peninsula.

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.

萨那 spells the foreign name Sana'a; the characters carry no meaning here.

Sound-only characters

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

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

邑邑yìcity

Sound part声符shēngfú

冄

冉rǎn那nà

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

The right part 邑 shows a city, and the left part 冄 (written 冉) gives the sound. The character first named a state and was later used to mean 'that'.