The word "卡拉" is formed through a direct phonetic borrowing from a foreign language, specifically from the Japanese abbreviation "kara" (カラ) in "karaoke", which itself originates from the Japanese words for "empty" and "orchestra". In its creation, two existing Chinese characters were chosen purely for their sound, "卡" (kǎ) and "拉" (lā), to closely mimic the syllables of the foreign term, resulting in a meaningful unit in Chinese that exclusively carries the imported concept, most famously in the compound "卡拉OK" (kǎlā-OK) for karaoke.