The word 宣言 is formed by combining two conceptual characters: 宣, which carries the meaning of "to declare publicly" or "to proclaim", and 言, which means "speech" or "words". Together, they create a composite idea where the action of public declaration (宣) is directly applied to the substance of speech (言), resulting in the meaning of a formal "declaration" or "manifesto", essentially, proclaimed words meant for public dissemination.