The word "印第安" (Yìndì'ān) is formed through a process of phonetic transliteration, where the three Chinese characters are chosen primarily for their sound to approximate the English word "Indian", specifically in reference to Native Americans. It is not a meaning-based construction, but a historical linguistic borrowing that originated from early translations and encounters, where the characters "印" (yìn), "第" (dì), and "安" (ān) were combined to replicate the syllables of the foreign term, resulting in a phonetic loanword whose individual character meanings (like "seal", "sequence", and "peace") are largely irrelevant to its intended reference.