edited by
JOHN H. WOTlZ Southern lilinois University Carbondaie, lllino~s62901
N and Na-The
Egyptian Connection
M a r t i n R. Feldman Howard Uniuersitv Washington, DC 20059 Among the fascinating stories in the history of chemical nomenclature, few are as complex historically and geographically as the origins of the names and symbols for uitrogen and sodium, which have their common root in ancient Egypt. From the known beginning of Egyptian civilization, the Tasian era (5000-4400 BC), a suhstance which was found in drv lakes in the desert was used for cleansine. ... emhalmine. -. and food preservation (I). The substance is mostly sodium carbonate, containing small amounts of sodium chloride and sodium sulfate, and was called n t r (neter) by the Egyptians. Hieroglyphs for ntr are shown in the figure. The suhstance was exported throughout the ancient wodd and was widely known: to the Hebrews it was neter and was mentioned twice in the Bible (2); to the Greeks it was nitron; to the Romans it was nitrum (see figure). Knowledge from the ancient world was preserved and developed in the Arahic countries and transmitted back to Europe in the late Middle Ages. The suhstance which has been discussed was called natrun (see figure) in Arahic, and this word became natron in Soain. France. Germanv. and En( 0 ~ 1 )dares ; the gland. 'l'he ..Oxford ~ n ~ l i dictionary" ih enrrv of natrm into Eneliih from French in 1665. In Knalish. natrbn is rarely used toiay, but the Swedish adaptation of the Arabic natrun, trona, is commonly used in the sodium carbonate industry. Trona ore is mined in Wyoming and provides a significant amount of commercial sodium carbonate for glass and other manufactured products (3). In England, another word, soda, was used for sodium carbonate, and soda is the more popular term for this suhstance. The etymology of soda is itself interesting, possibly originating with an Arabic word for headache (soda beine" the suonosed .. remedy), or an Arabic word for a plant whose ashes yield sodium carbonate, or an Italian word for plant ashes used in making glass (4). T h e Romans discovered that a much stronger "soda" could he made by treating soda with slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) (5)and the new suhstance (sodium hvdroxide) was called caustic soda in Endish. Davv's isolation of a very reactive metal from caustic soda led him to propose the name sodium for the element.' In Germany, however, caustic soda was natronlauge (natronlye), and L. W. Gilbert, professor a t Halle and Leipzig, proposed the name natronium for the element. Berzelius shortened the name to natrium (still used in German) and gave the symbol Na to the element, which was eventually universally adopted. The name sodium and symbol So, as well as potassium with symbol Po, were used in a paper by Berzelius in Annals of Philosophy (1814). These names and symbols ap-
'Theb r n cuffix war pmptrird it). H F I ~ I I I Hfor I I the IIHIIIC'I vf nwallic element; ( f i l . and n:,r .doptrd hg llnw and uthrrs.
6
Natron, trona
Derivation of N and Na. (1)Egyptian. (2)Hebrew. (3)Greek. (4)Latin (5)Arabic. (6) European. Connections shown are reasonable but not definite.Egyptian. Hebrew and Arabic are read right to left Arabic is shown as individual letters instead of the usual script. Figure prepared with assistance tram A. Shamim and L. Feldman. pear in a table of Berzelius' atomic weights in Ihde's "The Development of Modern Chemistry." (7) In fact, thesenames and symbols were the work of the journal's British editor, Thomson, and Berzelius was very angry about the unauthorized changes to his natrium and kalium. (8) The derivation of "nitroeen" from n t r is less direct than "natrium."'l'he Latin n~lrunfor $01 nirri was used fur iodium carbunare h\. Eurouean srhnlars in the Middle Aees. - The word became nitre in French, and according to the OED, came to Eneland as nitre or niter in the thirteenth centurv (see fimre). ~ h King l James Bible (1611), for example, translate3 the Hebrew neter as nitre. Unfortunately, many names were confused in European alchemical manuscripts, and the same term often represent,ed different substances to different authors. In the case of sal nitri, saltpeter (potassium nitrate) was sometimes meant, possibly first by the alchemist Raimon Lull (1232-1315) (9).For reasons unknown, this meaning of nitre eraduallv reolaced the orieinal. nurini the sevenreenth centurv, nitre represented both sub;tilnces. which no douhr led tu n)nsiderahle wnfusinn The OED quotes two sources two years apart who used "nitre" for different substances: When God shall purge this Land with Soap and Nitre, Woe be . . .Ward, 1647 to the Crown,woe be to the Mitre. Great flames kindled from a little spark, fallen into a heap of .. .Taylor, 1649 prepared nitre. Bv the eiehteenth centurv, nitre was generallv taken to mean potassium nitrate, and theoriginal meaning had hecome ohsolere. Geoffrov (17361 di.;tinruiihed the "nitre of the ancients" from the "nitre of the moderns," (IO), hut such distinctions were rarely used. By the end of the century, a t the beginning of modern chemistry, the chemistry of nitre was well Volume 57. Number 12, December 1980 1 877
known, as was nitric acid, nitrous acid, and other nitrate and nitrite salts. Lavoisier named the acids and salts with his modern system of nomenclature, hut he called the element which formed the compounds azote (Greek, without life). Because Cavendish produced nitre by sparking "azote" and oxygen in the presence of potassium hydroxide, Chaptal (1790) proposed the name nitrogen for the element, meaning "nitre-forming," by analogy with oxygen (acid-forming) and hydrogen (water-forming) ( 1 1 ). Thus two important elements, which differ in their chemistry and history, share an etymological path through various civilizations from an origin in the deserts of Egypt. Literature Cited I11 Mulfhsuf,
K.P., "The O~ieinsof Chemistry: Franklin Wattn,
New Yurk, 1967, p.
16) Mullhauf.op. c i f . p. 33.
161 Cnmland, M. P.,"HisUrical Studies in the Languageof Chemistry,"Dwer, New York. 1978. p. 149.
878 1 Journal of Chemical Education
(7) Ihde, A. J.,"The Develspmenloi Modern Chemistry," Harper and R w New Ynrk, 1911.o. 142. r f . o. 116.
Another Derivation for Barbituric Acid In response ro the recent articl~." A d d f w n B n q w nnd the Naming of Harbiruric Acid" IG. H. Kauiiman, J . C'HEhI. EDIIC.. 37. 222 t 19RO1l. Dr. John F.\ V h l d h i e rhe School of ~he&is&y,~nivers;tyof Bristol, England, has called to our attention another possible derivation: "Baeyer's paper does not disclose the reason for the choice of the name barbituric acid but so stresses his conceotion of this substance as the kev compound in the series of related ureides as to suggest thk derivation from the German word Schlusselbart (the bit or "beard" of a key, from L. barba, beard) plus uric acid" (Fieser, L. F., and Fieser, M., "Organic Chemistry", D. C. Heath and Co., Boston, 1944, p. 247).
