The Chinese word "坦噶尼喀" is formed via phonetic transliteration of the English "Tanganyika", with each character chosen solely for its sound: 坦 (tǎn) for "Tan", 噶 (gá) for "ga", 尼 (ní) for "ni", and 喀 (kā) for "ka", resulting in a sequential approximation of the original pronunciation without semantic relevance.