The Chinese word 玛雅 (Mǎyǎ) is a phonetic loanword formed through transliteration, specifically to represent the foreign sound "Maya" (referring to the ancient Mesoamerican civilization or the name). It is constructed by selecting two existing Chinese characters, 玛 (mǎ) and 雅 (yǎ), whose combined pronunciation closely approximates the source word. Neither character contributes its original meaning (玛 can mean "agate" and 雅 can mean "elegant"); they function purely as phonetic symbols to capture the sound of "Maya" within the constraints of Mandarin's syllable structure.