The Chinese word **蒙古** (Ménggǔ), meaning "Mongolia," is a phonetic transcription formed through a process of historical sound borrowing. It originated as an approximation of the name used by the Mongol people for themselves (e.g., "Mongɣol" in Middle Mongolian). The Chinese characters were selected primarily for their sound values during early interactions, notably recorded from the Tang Dynasty onward, with "蒙" (Méng) representing the initial syllable and "古" (gǔ) the final. While the individual characters carry their own meanings ("蒙" can imply "to cover" or "ignorant," and "古" means "ancient"), their combination in this context is essentially non-semantic, functioning together as a fixed phonetic loanword to denote the ethnic group and region.