The Chinese word 厄立特里亚 is formed solely through phonetic transliteration, where each character is chosen to approximate the sounds of the English name "Eritrea": 厄 (è) corresponds to "E", 立 (lì) to "ri", 特 (tè) to "tre", 里 (lǐ) to "ri", and 亚 (yà) to "a", collectively creating a sound-based representation without conveying meaning.