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Chinese characters do not always have a clearly defined, unambiguous, meaning when gazed upon on their own in isolation. But they do acquire a specific meaning when used in a specific context. Typically, when complemented with other characters (it varies across Chinese languages, e.g. Chinese words tend to be shorter in spoken Cantonese as opposed to spoken Mandarin due to the historical loss of multiple finals in the latter as the former has retained many original sounds from Middle Chinese, hence also the historical divide). The context is very important in the Chinese languages.

For example, 夷 (the main character compounding the word 蠻夷, a «barbarian») – on its own – means «wild» or «ferral»; it can also be used to refer to a massacre (夷族 or 夷戮), but it can also be used to mean «calm», as in 夷然 (a fringe written word).

Most translations to European languages have historically used approximations due to the lack of the comprehension of a culture unfamiliar to Europeans. Therefore, the Greek word for «barbaric» / «barbarian» has been used as the closest appoximation of the meaning of 夷, but not it does not equate to its true semantic meaning for a native speaker.