Rufus Suter
4321 Southern Avenue
Naming Chemical Elements in Chinese
Bradbury Heights, Maryland
I n English we have the practice of naming chemical elements in Greek and Latin. Thus hydrogen is [li8poyi-ws(born of water), spelled out and slightly revised in Latin letters. It is interesting to glance a t the systems of nomenclature used in a language which does not spell out its words in letters of an alphabet, and which, therefore, is ill-adapted to the assimilation of Greek and Latin. Such a language, of course, is Chinese. The supplementary volume of the encyclopedia Tz'd yuan (Commercial Press, Shanghai, 1932) has a table on the basis of which one may distinguish four diierent ways of naming chemical elements in Chinese. Ancienf Names
Each of the 90 elements discussed in this table is described as discovered by a westerner during the period from the sixteenth to the first quarter of the twentieth century, except nine, which are said to be of prehistoric discovery. These nine are carbon, sulfur, iron, copper, ti, gold, mercury, silver and lead. The characters for metallic substances are formed from two radicals, with the exception of gold. The radical on the left side of the metallic elements is the character for gold. The radical on the left for carbon and sulfur means rock. The Chinese characters for these nine elements are an integral part of the language and literature and owe nothing to western terminology. See Figure 1.
I
Element
I
I
Character
Modern Names: Translations of European Words
Another small group of Chinese element names consists of characters describing qualities of elements in the same fashion as German. Thus, one way of saying (or, rather, of writing) hydrogen is to use two ideograms, shui and su, generating shui-su, which is an etymological equivalent for Wasserstoff. Another twocharacter rendition of hydrogen is ch'inp-ch'i, meaning etymologically a light, as opposed to a heavy, gas. In two other translations new characters have been introduced combining into single ideograms meanings contained in pairs of ideograms in the translations just cited. Thus, one of these single character translations for hydrogen is water inside of the gas radical, Wasserstoff, "born of water"; and the other is part of the symbol for light in weight inside of the gas radical. The whole character exmesses in a sinale ideogram what eh'inp-ch'isaid with two. (See Fig. 2.)
Hydrogen
>K $ rhui -
I
1
;u
Worrerrtoif
1 I
A< water
1
light gar light
/ I
sulphur
liu
iron
t'ieh
gold
chin
mercury
hung
radical for gold
radical for rock
Figure 1 .
I I
chin
*hie
Figure 2.
I I
Ancient names for elements.
44 / Journal of Chemical Education
Chinese names for hydrogen.
A similar analysis may be given for the Chinese words for oxygen. One translation is suan-su, etymologically identical with Sauerstoff. Another is yanp-ch'i, "the gas that nourishes." Two other translations are especially devised single ideograms, each enclosed by the gas radical, and inside of each a symbol pronounced yanp and intended as a simplified form of the yang in yanp-ch'i which means to nourish but is too complicated a pattern t o fit inside of another. Of these two simplified yanp's, one is simpler than the other, and the translation of oxygen making use of this simplest yanp is the preferred form. (See Fig. 3.) EDITOR'S NOTE:The author and editor gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Miss Helen Cheng Shan Li who executed the calligraphy for this paper. Miss Li was graduated from The College of Wooster in June 1962 with s. BA in chemistry, and she is now a student in the Medical School of Stanford University.
Nitrogen is chih-su, Stickstoff; also tan-ch'i, "tasteless gas," and hsiao-ch'i saltpeter gas. Again there are specially devised single characters with the gas radical on the outside and various ideograms pronounced tan (all standing for the tan that means tasteless) on the inside. (See Fig. 4.)
I
Oxygen
ak -
man
yong
$0
Sauerstoff
Figure 3.
chih
ch'i
yong
nourish gor
ch'i
preferred form
Chinese characters for oxygen.
-
ru
ton
Figure 4.
-
ch'i
hrioo
tartelerr gar
Stickstoff
-
ch'i
rc!ltpeter gas
Chinese characters for nitrogen.
h i d e from these three elements other translations presenting a description of quality and using single symbols expressly invented for the purpose, include phosphorus, platinum and bromine. Ling, phosphorus, combines the stone radical with a word meaning-when used without the stone radical-will o' the wisp. The ideogram for platinum consists of the metal radical and the character meaning "white." The only element in the table of 90 elements having a radical other than metal, gas, or stone is ch'ou, for bromine. Its radical is water and it is fused with a word meaning to stink. (See Fig. 5.)
I Phosphorus
/
I
1
ling
I Platinum Po
1
ch'ou
I radicol for rock
I
1
will o' the wisp
I
Modern Names: Transliterations o f European Symbols a n d Words
If the reader will turn back he will remind himself that Chinese characters are analyzable into radical and phonetic, the former giving a clue to meaning, the latter to sound. The single character translations discussed in the preceding section are unusualin that their phonetics, although they suggest-as they should-the sounds of the characters they also-like radicals-help define the meaning. In the large class of single character translations to which we now turn, the phonetic is used exclusively in its proper function as phonetic, and tells nothing about qualities of elements. No doubt modem Chinese chemists were driven to this rather arbitrary method of naming elements for the simple reason that elements became too numerous and their identifying qualities too recondite to he expressed in the ideal ways described above. But in spite of a degree of arbitrariness, this newest of modern Chinese schemes of chemical nomenclature has all the ingenuity of Chinese genius. In the first place, it is inexhaustible and efficient, capable of turning out element names as if on an assembly line. In the second place, it enables the Chinese reader, to know a t once to what class of elements a word refers, and to correlate the word with the European international chemical symbol or with the Latin or Greek name. At least 60 elements are named according to this plan. Each name contains the classifying radical: metal, gas, or non-metal (stone), and the rest of the ideogram consists of a character which, as nearly as Chinese sounds permit, has either the same sound as that of the European chemical symbol, or the sound of some syllable (not necessarily the first) in the European name. For example: uranium, symbol U, is a character made up of the metal radical and a phonetic pronounced yu. Tungsten is the metal radical combined with wu, the first syllable of wolfram. Neon, symbol Ne, is the gas radical plus a phonetic pronounced nai. Arsenic is the stone radical with a phonetic pronounced shPn, the second syllable of arsenic. (SeeFig. 6.)
Uranium
I
I
I
I rediccll for m e l d
radical for water
+ "white"
stink
I
Figure 5. Chinese characters for phosphorus, platinum, and bromine.
metal rodicol
Yu
phonetic
I
I
Tungsten
fk -
4%
phonetic
metal rodicol
WY
Neon
phonetic
gar radical
nai
I
i
Arsenic
That several of these translations are precise etymological equivalents of German words would seem to indicate the influence of German chemical literature on China in the early twentieth century. The influence, however, was probably indirect: by way of Japanese translations of the German.
rhen
Figure 6. arsenic.
stone rodicol
phonetic
Modern names for uranium, tungsten, neon and Volume 40, Number I, January 1963
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45
M o d e r n Names:
Complete Transliterations
This fourth and last of the Chinese ways of naming chemical elements need detain us only a moment. It has the ear-mark of an early experiment of tranelator's methodology, and it was soon abandoned. It consists of using ideograms as if they were syllables (like the Japanese kana) and actually spelling out the foreign word. Radium becomes lei-t'ing, where allowance must be made for the Chinese habit of using "1" for " ,, . r m the transliteration of foreign words. Often the similarity of sound is difficult to hear. In some cases one wonders what happened, as in the case of jih-chi-t& for germanium. These symbols would mean "Japan and Germany" except that to each, including the "and," the metal radical has been affixed. (See Fig. 7.) This system of representing foreign sounds has been used in China for many years, asreaders of Chinese newspapers will recognize. Even in today's press the personal names of political leaders, scientists, etc., are still
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lournal of Chemkol Educafion
I
Radium
I
I
Germanium
I
chi
Figure 7.
fe
I
Japon
and
Germony
Modern names far radium and germanium.
thus phonetized-just as in past centuries the names of people like Aristotle and Biblical prophets and apostles were phonetized. As far as personal names are concerned perhaps no other method of rendition in Chinese is possible. But Chinese chemists showed great wisdom in not attempting to develop that method for use in chemical terminology.
