Chemical elements in East Asian languages

The names for chemical elements in East Asian languages, along with those for some chemical compounds (mostly organic), are among the newest words to enter the local vocabularies. Except for those metals well-known since antiquity, most elements had their names created after modern chemistry was introduced to East Asia in the 18th and 19th century, with more translations being coined for those elements discovered later.

While most East Asian languages use—or had used—the Chinese script, only the Chinese use the characters as the predominant way of naming elements. On the other hand, the Japanese and Koreans primarily employ native alphabets for the names of the elements (Katakana and Hangul, respectively).

Chinese

In Chinese, characters for the elements are the last officially created and recognized characters in the Chinese writing system. Unlike characters for unofficial varieties of Chinese (e.g., written Cantonese) or other now-defunct ad hoc characters (e.g., those by the Empress Wu), the names for the elements are official, consistent, and taught (with Mandarin pronunciation) to every Chinese and Taiwanese student who has attended public schools (usually by the first year of middle school).

Native characters

Some metallic elements were already familiar to the Chinese, as their ores were already excavated and used extensively in China for construction, alchemy, and medicine. These include the traditional "Five Metals" (五金) — gold (金), silver (銀), copper (銅), iron (鐵), and tin (錫) — as well as lead (鉛) and mercury (汞).

Some non-metals were already named in Chinese as well, because their minerals were in widespread use. For example,

• carbon (碳) in the form of charcoal
• boron (硼) as part of borax
• sulfur (硫) had been used to make gunpowder since at least the 10th century in China.

European pronunciation-based characters

Most elements, however, remained unknown to the Chinese until they were isolated during the Industrial Age. These new elements therefore required new characters, which were invented using the phono-semantic principle. Each character consists of two parts, to signify the meaning and to hint at the sound:

1. The semantic (meaning) part is also the radical of the character. It refers to the element's usual state at room temperature and standard pressure. There are only four radicals used for elements: 釒/钅 (jīn "gold") for solid metals, 石 (shí "stone") for solid non-metals, 水/氵 (shuǐ "water") for liquids, and 气 (qì "air") for gases.
2. The phonetic (sound) part represents the character's pronunciation and is a partial transliteration of the element. For each element character, this is a unique phonetic component. Since there are over 100 elements already discovered, there are over 100 different phonetic components used in naming the elements.

Examples of characters derived from European pronunciations

Semantic	Phonetic	Element	Source
金 +	里 lǐ	= 鋰 (lǐ)	lithium
金 +	甲 jiǎ	= 鉀 (jiǎ)	kalium, Latin name for potassium
金 +	內 nèi	= 鈉 (nà)*	natrium, Latin name for sodium
金 +	弟 tì or dì	= 銻 (tì)*	antimony
金 +	臬 niè	= 鎳 (niè)	nickel
金 +	鬲 gé	= 鎘 (gé)	cadmium
金 +	烏 wū	= 鎢(wù)*	Wolfram, the discoverers' name for tungsten
金 +	必 bì	= 鉍 (bì)	bismuth
金 +	由 yóu	= 鈾 (yóu)	uranium
金 +	呂 lǚ	= 鋁 (lǚ)	aluminium
石 +	典 diǎn	= 碘 (diǎn)	iodine
气 +	亥 hài	= 氦 (hài)	helium
气 +	弗 fú	= 氟 (fú)	fluorine
气 +	乃 nǎi	= 氖 (nǎi)	neon
*where the derived pronunciation differs (in tone or in sound)

The "water" radical (水) is rarely used, since only two elements (bromine and mercury) are truly liquid at standard room temperature and pressure (see List of elements by melting point). Both of their characters are not based on the European pronunciation of the elements' names. Bromine (溴), the only liquid nonmetal at room temperature, is explained in the following section. Mercury (汞), now grouped with the heavy metals, was long classified as a kind of fluid in ancient China.

Meaning-based characters

A few characters, though, are not created using the above "semantic-phonetic" design, but are "semantic-semantic", that is, both of its parts indicate meanings. One part refers to the element's usual state (like the semantic-phonetic characters). However, the second part indicates some additional property or function of the element. Such elements are:

Semantic	Semantic	Element	English	Note
金 +	白 (white)	= 鉑 bó†	platinum	See note ¥
氵 +	臭 (stinky)	= 溴 xiù†	bromine	odorous (brómos in Greek also means "stench")
气 +	羊, short for 養 (to nourish/foster)	= 氧 yǎng‡	oxygen	A continuous supply of oxygenated air nourishes almost all animals
气 +	巠, short for 輕 (light-weight)	= 氫 qīng	hydrogen	the lightest of all elements
气 +	彔, short for 綠 (green)	= 氯 lǜ	chlorine	greenish yellow in color
气 +	炎, short for 淡 (diluted)	= 氮 dàn‡	nitrogen	"dilutes" breathable air
石 +	粦, short for 燐 (glow)	= 磷 lín	phosphorus	emits a faint glow in the dark

† These are the source characters' older alternate — but now almost obsolete — pronunciation. Nowadays 白 (white) is normally pronounced bái in the standard Mandarin dialect, although traditionally bó was preferred. Similarly, 臭 (smelly) is almost always pronounced chòu, as opposed to xiù, a now-archaic reading.

‡ Regarding the seeming mismatch in pronunciation: Note that the ultimate source of 氧 (yǎng)(oxygen) is not 羊 (yáng)(sheep) but 養 (yǎng)(support,maintain). Likewise, the ultimate source of 氮 (dàn)(nitrogen) is not 炎 (yán)(inflammation) but 淡 (dàn)(light,weak) .

¥ The original meaning of 鉑 is "thin sheet of gold" (now obsolete). The character was not associated with platinum until modern time, since platinum was known in the Old World only after the Age of Discovery

Notes

Mainland vs. Taiwan names (*used in Hong Kong and Macao,**exclusively in Hong Kong and Macau)

silicon	14	硅* guī	矽 xī
technetium	43	锝 dé	鎝* dā
francium	87	钫/**鈁 fāng	鍅 fǎ
neptunium	93	镎 ná	錼* nài
plutonium	94	钚 bù	鈽* bù
americium	95	镅 méi	鋂* měi
berkelium	97	锫/**錇 péi	鉳 běi
californium	98	锎 kāi	鉲* kǎ
einsteinium	99	锿 āi	鑀* ài

A minority of the "new characters" are not completely new inventions, as they coincide with archaic characters, whose original meanings have long been lost to most people. For example, 鏷 (protactinium), 鈹 (beryllium), 鉻 (chromium), and 鑭 (lanthanum) are obscure characters meaning "raw iron", "needle", "hook", and "harrow" respectively.

The majority of the elements' names are the same in Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, merely being variants of each other, since most of the names were translated by a single body of standardization before the PRC-ROC split. However, since francium and the transuranium elements were discovered during or after the split, they have different names in Taiwan and in Mainland China.

The isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium (D) and tritium (T)) are written 氘 dāo and 氚 chuān respectively in both simplified and traditional writing.
鑀 is used in Taiwan for both einsteinium (mainland China: 锿) and ionium, the radioactive isotope of thorium, element number 90.

In periodic tables

Many operating systems and web browsers do not support the display of some of the newer elements, since the characters for elements with atomic numbers 104 and above were only added in Unicode 3.1 (2001) as surrogate pairs that are part of the CJK Ideographs Extension B character set.

Simplified characters for elements 104 and above (except the character for darmstadtium) have not been encoded as of Unicode 6.0 (October 2010) and are thus given only as images in the simplified characters table below. The simplified character for darmstadtium (element 110) has been added to Unicode 6.0 (U+2B7FC 𫟼).

Simplified Chinese

Periodic table in simplified Chinese (view as an image)
族→	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
↓週期
1	1 H 氢																	2 He 氦
2	3 Li 锂	4 Be 铍											5 B 硼	6 C 碳	7 N 氮	8 O 氧	9 F 氟	10 Ne 氖
3	11 Na 钠	12 Mg 镁											13 Al 铝	14 Si 硅	15 P 磷	16 S 硫	17 Cl 氯	18 Ar 氩
4	19 K 钾	20 Ca 钙	21 Sc 钪	22 Ti 钛	23 V 钒	24 Cr 铬	25 Mn 锰	26 Fe 铁	27 Co 钴	28 Ni 镍	29 Cu 铜	30 Zn 锌	31 Ga 镓	32 Ge 锗	33 As 砷	34 Se 硒	35 Br 溴	36 Kr 氪
5	37 Rb 铷	38 Sr 锶	39 Y 钇	40 Zr 锆	41 Nb 铌	42 Mo 钼	43 Tc 锝	44 Ru 钌	45 Rh 铑	46 Pd 钯	47 Ag 银	48 Cd 镉	49 In 铟	50 Sn 锡	51 Sb 锑	52 Te 碲	53 I 碘	54 Xe 氙
6	55 Cs 铯	56 Ba 钡	镧 系	72 Hf 铪	73 Ta 钽	74 W 钨	75 Re 铼	76 Os 锇	77 Ir 铱	78 Pt 铂	79 Au 金	80 Hg 汞	81 Tl 铊	82 Pb 铅	83 Bi 铋	84 Po 钋	85 At 砹	86 Rn 氡
7	87 Fr 钫	88 Ra 镭	锕 系	104 Rf	105 Db	106 Sg	107 Bh	108 Hs	109 Mt	110 Ds	111 Rg	112 Cn	113 Uut	114 Fl 钅夫	115 Uup	116 Lv 钅立	117 Uus	118 Uuo
镧系元素			57 La 镧	58 Ce 铈	59 Pr 镨	60 Nd 钕	61 Pm 钷	62 Sm 钐	63 Eu 铕	64 Gd 钆	65 Tb 铽	66 Dy 镝	67 Ho 钬	68 Er 铒	69 Tm 铥	70 Yb 镱	71 Lu 镥
锕系元素			89 Ac 锕	90 Th 钍	91 Pa 镤	92 U 铀	93 Np 镎	94 Pu 钚	95 Am 镅	96 Cm 锔	97 Bk 锫	98 Cf 锎	99 Es 锿	100 Fm 镄	101 Md 钔	102 No 锘	103 Lr 铹
背景顏色所代表的意義 碱金属 Alkali metals 碱土金属 Alkaline earth metals 镧系元素 Lanthanides 锕系元素 Actinides 过渡金属 Transition metals 主族金属 Post-​transition metals 类金属 Metalloids 非金属 Other nonmetals 卤素 Halogens 稀有氣體 Noble gases

Traditional Chinese

Periodic table in traditional Chinese
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
1	1 H 氫																	2 He 氦
2	3 Li 鋰	4 Be 鈹											5 B 硼	6 C 碳	7 N 氮	8 O 氧	9 F 氟	10 Ne 氖
3	11 Na 鈉	12 Mg 鎂											13 Al 鋁	14 Si 矽	15 P 磷	16 S 硫	17 Cl 氯	18 Ar 氬
4	19 K 鉀	20 Ca 鈣	21 Sc 鈧	22 Ti 鈦	23 V 釩	24 Cr 鉻	25 Mn 錳	26 Fe 鐵	27 Co 鈷	28 Ni 鎳	29 Cu 銅	30 Zn 鋅	31 Ga 鎵	32 Ge 鍺	33 As 砷	34 Se 硒	35 Br 溴	36 Kr 氪
5	37 Rb 銣	38 Sr 鍶	39 Y 釔	40 Zr 鋯	41 Nb 鈮	42 Mo 鉬	43 Tc 鎝	44 Ru 釕	45 Rh 銠	46 Pd 鈀	47 Ag 銀	48 Cd 鎘	49 In 銦	50 Sn 錫	51 Sb 銻	52 Te 碲	53 I 碘	54 Xe 氙
6	55 Cs 銫	56 Ba 鋇	鑭 系	72 Hf 鉿	73 Ta 鉭	74 W 鎢	75 Re 錸	76 Os 鋨	77 Ir 銥	78 Pt 鉑	79 Au 金	80 Hg 汞	81 Tl 鉈	82 Pb 鉛	83 Bi 鉍	84 Po 釙	85 At 砈	86 Rn 氡
7	87 Fr 鈁	88 Ra 鐳	錒 系	104 Rf 鑪	105 Db 𨧀	106 Sg 𨭎	107 Bh 𨨏	108 Hs 𨭆	109 Mt 䥑	110 Ds 鐽	111 Rg 錀	112 Cn 鎶	113 Uut	114 Fl 鈇	115 Uup	116 Lv 鉝	117 Uus	118 Uuo
鑭系元素			57 La 鑭	58 Ce 鈰	59 Pr 鐠	60 Nd 釹	61 Pm 鉕	62 Sm 釤	63 Eu 銪	64 Gd 釓	65 Tb 鋱	66 Dy 鏑	67 Ho 鈥	68 Er 鉺	69 Tm 銩	70 Yb 鐿	71 Lu 鎦
錒系元素			89 Ac 錒	90 Th 釷	91 Pa 鏷	92 U 鈾	93 Np 錼	94 Pu 鈽	95 Am 鋂	96 Cm 鋦	97 Bk 鉳	98 Cf 鉲	99 Es 鑀	100 Fm 鐨	101 Md 鍆	102 No 鍩	103 Lr 鐒

Japanese

Even though the Japanese language also uses Chinese characters (kanji), it primarily employs katakana to transliterate names of the elements from European languages (often German/Dutch or Latin [via German] or English). For example,

English	Japanese	Note
antimony	anchimon (アンチモン)	This form without the final vowel (i from y) is likely from Dutch (Antimoon): see also: Sakoku
tungsten	tangusuten (タングステン)	from English; other major European languages refer to this element as wolfram or tungsten with some additional syllable (-o, -e, etc.).
sodium	natoriumu (ナトリウム)	natrium in Latin
uranium	uran (ウラン)	Uran in German, uran in Polish and úran in Icelandic

Native names

On the other hand, elements known since antiquity are Chinese loanwords, which are mostly identical to their Chinese counterparts (see above), albeit in the Shinjitai, for example, iron (鉄) is tetsu (Tang-dynasty loan) and lead (鉛) is namari (native reading). Whereas all elements in Chinese are single-character in the official system, some Japanese elements have two characters. Oftentimes this parallels colloquial or everyday names for such elements in Chinese, such as 水銀/水银 for mercury and 硫黄 for sulfur.

English	Japanese	Chinese	Note
mercury	水銀 (suigin)	汞 (gǒng)	literally meaning "watery silver", like the element's symbol, Hg (from Latin/Greek hydro-argyrum = "water-silver")
sulfur	硫黄 (iō, formerly iwō )	硫 (líu)	黄 (ō) means "yellow", to distinguish 硫 from other characters pronounced the same
zinc	亜鉛 (aen)	鋅/锌 (xīn)	meaning "lesser lead": 鉛 means "lead" in Japanese and Chinese

Some elements with names written in kanji have the suffix -so (素), meaning "element/component". For instance, arsenic is hiso (ヒ素 "hi element") in modern Japanese. The name hi (ヒ) is derived from hishima, the Chinese name for crystalline white arsenic (砒霜 "bi frosts"). In modern Chinese, however, arsenic is now simply shen (砷), being an approximation of the second syllable of the element's European name (-sen-). Likewise, although boron is written in katakana now (ホウ素 hōso), its origin is Chinese. Hō (ホウ) is derived from hōsa, the Chinese name for borax, the "peng sands" (硼砂). Boron is still called peng in modern Chinese.

Meaning-based names

Furthermore, a few of the pre-modern elements from the 18th century also have Kanji names, though sometimes drastically different from their Chinese counterparts. The following comparison shows that Japanese does not use the radical system for naming elements like Chinese.

English	Japanese	Chinese	Note
platinum	hakkin (白金 "white gold")	鉑	similar to Chinese
bromine	shūso (臭素 "the stinky element")	溴	similar to Chinese, except the lack of the "water" radical
oxygen	sanso (酸素 "acid's component")	氧	similar to the German word for oxygen, Sauerstoff ("sour substance") or the Greek-based oxygen ("acid maker"). Many 19th-century European chemists erroneously believed that all acids contain oxygen. (Many common ones do, but not all.)
hydrogen	suiso (水素 "water's component")	氫	translation of the hydro- prefix
chlorine	enso (塩素 "salt's component")	氯	it and sodium make up common table salt (NaCl); 塩 is the Shinjitai version of 鹽.
fluorine	fusso (弗素 lit. "the nothing element")	氟	similar to Chinese, except the lack of the "steam" radical. However, the kanji based from the character for Chinese (氟) is extremely rare.
nitrogen	chisso (窒素 "the suffocating element")	氮	translation of the German word for nitrogen, Stickstoff ("suffocating substance"). While nitrogen is not toxic per se, air-breathing animals cannot survive breathing it alone (without sufficient oxygen mixed in).
carbon	tanso (炭素 "coal element")	碳

Korean

As the Hanja (Sino-Korean characters) are now rarely used in Korea, all of the elements are written in Hangul. Since many Korean scientific terms were translated from Japanese sources, the pattern of naming is mostly similar to that of Japanese. Namely, the classical elements are loanwords from China, with new elements from European languages. For example:

English	Korean	Source
gold	geum (금)	from Chinese jin (金)
silver	eun (은)	from Chinese yin (銀)
bronze	dong (동)	from Chinese tong (銅)
antimony	antimon (안티몬)	from German
tungsten	teongseuten (텅스텐)	from English
sodium	nateuryum (나트륨)	from Latin or German (Na for natrium)
potassium	kalyum (칼륨)	from Latin or German kalium
manganese	manggan (망간)	from German Mangan

Pre-modern (18th-century) elements often are the Korean pronunciation of their Japanese equivalents, e.g.,

English	Korean (Hangul, hanja)
hydrogen	suso (수소, 水素)
carbon	tanso (탄소, 炭素)
nitrogen	jilso (질소, 窒素)
oxygen	sanso (산소, 酸素)
chlorine	yeomso (염소, 鹽素)
zinc	ayeon (아연, 亞鉛)
mercury	sueun (수은, 水銀)

Vietnamese

Some of the metals known since antiquity are loanwords from Chinese, such as copper (Đồng from 銅), lead (Chì from 鉛), tin (Thiếc from 錫), and mercury (thuỷ ngân from 水銀). Others have native Vietnamese readings, such as Sắt for iron, Bạc for silver, and Vàng for gold. In either case, now they are written in the Vietnamese alphabet. Before the Latin alphabet was introduced, Sắt was rendered as 𨫊 and Vàng as 鐄 in Chữ Nôm. Those are: Sulfur (Lưu huỳnh), Iron, Nickel (Kền, uncommon), Copper, Zinc (Kẽm), Silver, Tin, Platinum (Bạch kim), Gold, Mercury, Lead. Additionally, Oxygen is sometimes called dưỡng khí (literally translated as "nurturing air") for its necessity to human life.

The majority of elements are shortened and localized pronunciations of the European names (usually from French). For example:

• Phosphorus becomes phốtpho.
• The -ine suffix is lost, e.g., chlorine, iodine and fluorine become clo, iốt and flo, respectively.
• The -ium suffix is lost, e.g., caesium becomes xêzi (pronounced [sezi]), clearly indicating the French origin of the word (césium is pronounced [sezium])
  • Similarly, beryllium, tellurium, chromium, lithium and natrium (sodium) become berili, telua, crôm, liti, and natri, respectively
• The -gen suffix is lost, e.g., nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen become nitơ, ôxy and hiđrô, respectively

A minority of elements without—or with etymologically unclear—suffixes retain their full name, e.g.,

• Tungsten (aka wolfram) becomes volfram.
• Bismuth becomes bitmut.
• Aluminium becomes nhôm because the end -nium has a similar pronunciation, further because it is the first element to be known in English in Vietnam.
• Elements with the -on suffix (e.g. noble gases) seem to be inconsistent. Boron and silicon are respectively shortened to bo and silic. On the other hand, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon do not seem to have shorter forms.
• Unlike the other halogens, astatine retains its suffix (astatin in Vietnamese).
• Antimony is shortened to Antimon and Arsenic to Asen.

Some elements have multiple names, for instance, potassium is known as pô-tát and kali (from kalium, the element's Latin name).

See also

• Organic nomenclature in Chinese
• Discoveries of the chemical elements

References

• Wright, David (2000). Translating Science: The Transmission of Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China, 1840–1900. Leiden; Boston: Brill. See especially Chapter Seven, "On Translation".

External links

Periodic tables

• Interactive table in Traditional Chinese
• Interactive table in Simplified Chinese
• Interactive table in Japanese
• Interactive table in Korean
• English-Chinese periodic table of elements

Articles

• The Chinese Periodic Table: A Rosetta Stone for Understanding the Language of Chemistry in the Context of the Introduction of Modern Chemistry into China
• A New Inquiry into the Translation of Chemical Terms by John Fryer and Xu Shou
• Chinese Terms for Chemical Elements