The Chinese word "叙利亚" (Xùlǐyà) for "Syria" is formed through a process of phonetic transliteration, where characters are selected primarily for their sound rather than their meaning to approximate the pronunciation of the foreign name. Specifically, the characters 叙 (xù), 利 (lì), and 亚 (yǎ) combine to mimic the syllables of "Syria," with the common suffix "亚" (yà) often used in Chinese to represent the "-ia" ending found in many country names. Therefore, the word is a constructed phonetic loanword, with its individual semantic meanings (e.g., 叙 meaning "narrate," 利 meaning "benefit," 亚 meaning "second" or "Asia") being largely irrelevant to the nation it denotes.