The word "可可西里" is formed through phonetic transliteration, where each character is selected solely for its sound to approximate the pronunciation of the original foreign name, specifically from Tibetan or Mongolian, into Chinese; the characters 可 (kě), 可 (kě), 西 (xī), and 里 (lǐ) combine to replicate the syllables "ke-ke-xi-li" without conveying meaningful content related to the characters' individual definitions.