The word "谎言" (huǎngyán), meaning "lie", is formed through the combination of two characters: "谎" and "言". The character "谎" is itself constructed from the speech radical "讠" (a simplified form of "言", meaning "speech") and the component "荒", which suggests pronunciation and adds a connotation of "wild" or "unfounded". When joined with "言", which directly means "speech" or "words", the compound emphasizes the notion of "false speech", effectively creating a term that conveys deceptive or untruthful language through the layered meanings of its parts.