About
萘 (nài) is a phono-semantic compound created to represent the chemical compound naphthalene, transliterated from Western nomenclature. The upper radical 艹 (cǎo), used in modern chemistry to denote organic compounds, often aromatic hydrocarbons, provides the semantic category. The lower component 奈 (nài) serves as the phonetic element, approximating the initial syllable of "naphthalene". This structure illustrates how Chinese integrates foreign scientific terms by combining established semantic radicals with phonetic cues.