The Chinese word **埃塞俄比亚** (Āisài'ébǐyà) for "Ethiopia" is a phonetically constructed transliteration, formed by selecting a series of existing Chinese characters whose combined pronunciation closely approximates the sound of the English name "Ethiopia." Each character (埃-āi, 塞-sài, 俄-é, 比-bǐ, 亚-yà) was chosen primarily for its syllable sound rather than its individual meaning, following the standard Mandarin practice for rendering foreign proper nouns, with the final "亚" (yà) being a common suffix for country names in Chinese.