Chemical elements in East Asian languages

The names for chemical elements in East Asian languages, along with those for some chemical compounds, are among the newest words to enter the local vocabularies. Except for those metals well-known since antiquity, the names of most elements were created after modern chemistry was introduced to East Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries, with more translations being coined for those elements discovered later.
While most East Asian languages use—or have used—the Chinese script, only the Chinese language uses logograms as the predominant way of naming elements. Native phonetic writing systems are primarily used for element names in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.

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 or other now-defunct ad hoc characters, the names for the elements are official, consistent, and taught to every Chinese and Taiwanese student who has attended public schools. New names and symbols are decided upon by the China National Committee for Terminology in Science and Technology.

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 long-established group of "Five Metals" — gold, silver, copper, iron, and tin — as well as lead and mercury.
Some non-metals were already named in Chinese as well, because their minerals were in widespread use. For example,

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

Characters based on European pronunciations

However, the Chinese did not know about most of the elements 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, one to signify the meaning and the other to hint at the sound:
The semantic part is also the radical of the character. It refers to the element's usual state at room temperature and standard pressure. Only four radicals are used for elements: 釒/钅 for solid metals, 石 for solid non-metals, 水/氵 for liquids, and 气 for gases.
The phonetic part represents the character's pronunciation and is a partial transliteration of the element's name. For each element character, this is a unique phonetic component. Since 118 elements have been discovered, over 100 phonetic components are used in naming the elements. Because many characters in modern Chinese are homophones, including for tone, two different phonetic components can be pronounced the same. Current practice dictates that new names should avoid being homophonous with previous element names or with organic functional groups. However, this rule was not rigorously followed in the past, and confusingly, the names of tin and selenium both have the pronunciation xī with the same tone. The alternative pronunciation xí for tin is recommended by the National Committee for Approval of Terms in Science and Technology.
锡 and 硒 are not homophones in Nanjing Mandarin, which was the prestige dialect of Chinese when most elements were named, which was until the late 19th century. The phonetic component of 锡, 易, was accurate when the character was invented around 3000 years ago, but not now because of sound change. In Middle Chinese 锡 was an entering tone character, a closed syllable ending in -p/-t/-k. But 硒 was constructed in the late 19th century using the phonetic 西, which in Middle Chinese was a level tone character, an open syllable with a vowel ending. In Beijing Mandarin, the variety on which Standard Modern Chinese is based, stop consonant endings of syllables were dropped, and the entering tone was merged into the other tones in a complex and irregular manner by the 16th–17th centuries, and 锡 and 西 both became Tone 1 characters. In dialects that preserve the entering tone, like Nanjing Mandarin and Shanghainese and Cantonese, 锡 retains a -k or -ʔ ending and 锡 and 西 are pronounced differently.
This sometimes causes difficulty in verbal communication, as Sn and Se can both be divalent and tetravalent. Thus, SnO₂ 二氧化锡 and SeO₂ 二氧化硒 would be pronounced identically, as èryǎnghuàxī, if not for the variant xí for 锡. To avoid further confusion, P.R.C. authorities avoided using the name 矽 xī for silicon.

Semantic	Phonetic		Source
釒/钅 +	里 lǐ	= 鋰/锂	lithium
釒/钅 +	甲 jiǎ	= 鉀/钾	kalium, Latin name for potassium
釒/钅 +	內/内 nèi or nà ^†	= 鈉/钠	natrium, Latin name for sodium
釒/钅 +	弟 dì or tì ^†	= 銻/锑	stibium, Latin name for antimony
釒/钅 +	臬 niè	= 鎳/镍	nickel
釒/钅 +	鬲 gé	= 鎘/镉	cadmium
釒/钅 +	烏/乌 wū	= 鎢/钨	wolframium, Latin name for tungsten
釒/钅 +	必 bì	= 鉍/铋	bismuth
釒/钅 +	由 yóu	= 鈾/铀	uranium
釒/钅 +	呂/吕 lǚ	= 鋁/铝	aluminium
石 +	典 diǎn	= 碘	iodine
气 +	亥 hài	= 氦	helium
气 +	弗 fú	= 氟	fluorine
气 +	乃 nǎi	= 氖	neon
石 +	夕 xī	= 矽	silicon. Mainly used in R.O.C., Hong Kong, and Macau
石 +	圭 guī	= 硅	silicon. Derived from Japanese transliteration '珪' of archaic Dutch *kei*aarde. Mostly used in P.R.C.

The "water" radical is not used much here, as only two elements are truly liquid at standard room temperature and pressure. Their characters are not based on the European pronunciation of the elements' names. Bromine, the only liquid nonmetal at room temperature, is explained in the following section. Mercury, 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 "phono-semantic" design, but are "semantic-semantic", that is, both of its parts indicate meanings. One part refers to the element's usual state, while the other part indicates some additional property or function of the element. In addition, the second part also indicates the pronunciation of the element. Such elements are:

Semantic	Semantic		English	Note
釒/钅 +	白 bái	= 鉑/铂 bó	platinum	The character is repurposed.
氵 +	臭 chòu	= 溴 xiù	bromine	odorous
气 +	羊 yáng, short for 養/养 yǎng	= 氧 yǎng	oxygen	A continuous supply of oxygenated air nourishes almost all animals
气 +	巠/? jīng, short for 輕/轻 qīng	= 氫/氢 qīng	hydrogen	the lightest of all elements
气 +	彔/录 lù, short for 綠/绿 lǜ	= 氯/氯 lǜ	chlorine	greenish yellow in color
气 +	炎 yán, short for 淡 dàn	= 氮 dàn	nitrogen	dilutes breathable air
石 +	粦 lín, short for 燐 lín	= 磷 lín	phosphorus	emits a faint glow in the dark

Usage in the nomenclature for simple inorganic compounds

Simple covalent binary inorganic compounds E_mX''_n are named as
where X is more electronegative than E, using the IUPAC formal electronegativity order. 化 as a full noun or verb means 'change; transform'. As a noun suffix, it is equivalent to the English suffixes -ized/-ated/-ified. It is the root of the word 化学 'chemistry'.
For example, P₄S₁₀ is called 十硫化四磷 . As in English nomenclature, if m'' = 1, the numerical prefix of E is usually dropped in covalent compounds. For example, CO is called 一氧化碳 .
However, for compounds named as salts, numerical prefixes are dropped altogether, as in English. Thus, calcium chloride, CaCl₂, is named 氯化钙. The Chinese name for FeCl₃, 氯化铁, literally means 'chlorinated iron' and is akin to the archaic English names 'muriated iron' or 'muriate of iron'. In this example, 氯 is 'chlorine' and 铁 is 'iron'.
There is a Chinese analog of the -ic/-ous nomenclature for higher/lower oxidation states: -ous is translated as 亚 : for example, FeCl₂ is 氯化亚铁 and FeCl₃ is 氯化铁. In a four-way contrast, hypo- is translated as 次 and per- is translated as 高. For example, the acid HClO is 次氯酸 "inferior chlorine acid", HClO₂ is 亚氯酸, HClO₃ is 氯酸, and HClO₄ is 高氯酸. In this example, the character 酸 means acid. The more modern Stock nomenclature in which oxidation state is explicitly specified can also be used: thus, tin oxide is simply 氧化锡.

Recently discovered elements

In 2015, IUPAC recognised the discovery of four new elements. In November 2016, IUPAC published their formal names and symbols: nihonium, moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson.
Subsequently, in January 2017, the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies published four naming characters for these elements. The National Academy for Educational Research under the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China on Taiwan published an almost identical list in April 2017.
For traditional Chinese, nihonium and moscovium were then existing characters; while in simplified Chinese, only moscovium already existed in the Unicode Standard. The missing characters were added to Unicode version 11.0 as urgently needed characters in June 2018.
The Chinese characters for these symbols are:

History

In 1871, John Fryer and Shou Xu proposed the modern convention of exclusively using single characters for element names.

Japanese

Like other words in the language, elements' names in Japanese can be native, from China or from Europe.

Names based on European pronunciations

Even though the Japanese language also uses Chinese characters, it primarily employs katakana to transliterate names of the elements from European languages. Elements not listed in any of the tables below have their names follow English, like tungsten.

English	Japanese	Note
tungsten		from English; other major European languages refer to this element as wolfram or tungsten with some additional syllable.
nihonium		The first element discovered in Japan. Named after Japan.
sodium		natrium in Latin
potassium		kalium in Latin
titanium		Titan in German
chromium		Chrom in German
manganese		Mangan in German. Formerly written with ateji as 満俺.
selenium		Selen in German
niobium		Niob in German
molybdenum		Molybdän in German
antimony		From either Dutch antimoon or German Antimon
tellurium		Tellur in German
lanthanum		Lanthan in German
praseodymium		Praseodym in German
neodymium		Neodym in German
tantalum		Tantal in German
uranium		Uran in German
fluorine		approximates flu-. Similar to the Chinese: 氟, plus the "air" radical. As 弗 is not a commonly used kanji, it is often written フッ素, using katakana.
iodine		or German ' +. Chinese uses 碘, the second syllable of iodine'''.

Native names

On the other hand, elements known since antiquity are Chinese loanwords, which are mostly identical to their Chinese counterparts, albeit in the Shinjitai, for example, iron is tetsu and lead is namari. While all elements in Chinese are single-character in the official system, some Japanese elements have two characters. Often this parallels colloquial or everyday names for such elements in Chinese, such as 水銀/水银 for mercury and 硫黃/硫黄 for sulfur. A special case is tin, which is more often written in katakana.

English	Japanese	Chinese	Note
mercury		汞	"watery silver" aka. quicksilver, like the element's symbol, Hg. In the Greater China Region, 水銀/水银 is more generally used than 汞, because 汞 is not taught until the chemistry class but 水銀/水银 is the word used in daily life; for example, when people talk about the mercury liquid in the thermometer, most people would say "水銀/水银" but not 汞. This kind of thermometer is called "水銀溫度計/水银温度计" in Chinese instead of "汞溫度計/汞温度计", which is not used at all. In Japanese too, kō exists but is very rare and literary, having an alternative obsolete reading mizugane. It is used in shōkō "mercuric chloride".
sulfur	iō, formerly iwō	硫	means "yellow", to distinguish from other characters pronounced the same.
zinc		鋅/锌	meaning "light lead"; 鉛 is "lead" in Japanese and Chinese.
platinum		鉑	"white gold". Like 水銀/水银 and 汞 in Chinese, 白金 is the "daily"/colloquial word, and 鉑/铂 is the formal name and usually won't be taught until the chemistry class. In mainland China, jewelry stores usually use the word "白金" or "铂金".
arsenic		砷	hi < hi-shimo, the Chinese name for arsenic trioxide. In modern Chinese, arsenic is instead shēn, an approximation of the second syllable of arsenic. The kanji 砒 is quite rare. Often written ヒ素 using katakana.
boron		硼	Hō <, the Chinese name for borax. Boron is still called péng in modern Chinese. The kanji 硼 is extremely rare. Mostly written ホウ素 using katakana.

Meaning-based names

Some names were later invented to describe properties or characteristics of the element.
They were mostly introduced around the 18th century to Japan, and they sometimes differ drastically 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
hydrogen		氫/氢	translation of the hydro- prefix, or translation of the Dutch word for hydrogen, waterstof, or the German word Wasserstoff
carbon		碳	translation of the Dutch word for carbon, koolstof.
nitrogen		氮	translation of the Dutch word for nitrogen, stikstof. While nitrogen is not toxic per se and in fact constitutes the majority of air, air-breathing animals cannot survive breathing it alone.
oxygen		氧	similar to the Dutch word for oxygen, zuurstof, the German word Sauerstoff or the Greek-based oxygen. Many 19th-century European chemists erroneously believed that all acids contain oxygen.
silicon		硅	same as Chinese; the kanji 硅 is extremely rare. Often written ケイ素 using katakana. Its origin lies in the Dutch word keiaarde; kei is a partial calque. The Chinese word is an orthographic borrowing from Japanese.
phosphorus		磷	similar to Chinese, except the "fire" radical replacing the "stone" radical. The kanji 燐 is rare. Usually written リン using katakana.
chlorine		氯	together with sodium make up common table salt ; 塩 is the Shinjitai version of 鹽.
bromine		溴	similar to Chinese, except the lack of the "water" radical.

Korean

As Hanja 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. But recently, some elements' names were changed. For example:

English	Korean	Source	Korean
gold	geum	from Chinese jin	geum
silver	eun	from Chinese yin	eun
antimony	antimon	from German	antimoni
tungsten	teongseuten	from English	teongseuten
sodium	nateuryum	from Latin or German	sodyum
potassium	kalyum	from Latin or German kalium	potasyum
manganese	manggan	from German Mangan	mangganijeu

Pre-modern elements often are the Korean pronunciation of their Japanese equivalents, e.g.,

English	Korean
hydrogen	suso
carbon	tanso
nitrogen	jilso
oxygen	sanso
chlorine	yeomso
zinc	ayeon
mercury	sueun

Vietnamese

In Vietnamese, some of the elements known since antiquity and medieval times are loanwords from Chinese, such as copper, tin, mercury, sulfur, oxygen and platinum.
Others have native or old Sino-Vietnamese names, such as sắt for iron, bạc for silver, chì for lead, vàng for gold, kền for nickel and kẽm for zinc.
In either case, now they are written in the Vietnamese alphabet. Before the Latin alphabet was introduced, sắt was rendered as, bạc as, chì as, vàng as, kền as and kẽm as in Chữ Nôm.
The majority of elements are shortened and localized pronunciations of the European names. For example:Phosphorus becomes phốtpho and phosphor.

The -ine suffix is absent, e.g., chlorine, iodine and fluorine become clo, iốt and flo, respectively; compare French chlore, iode, fluor.
The -um suffix is lost, e.g., caesium becomes xêzi, pronounced ; compare the French césium, pronounced .
* Similarly, beryllium, tellurium, lithium, natrium, and lanthanum become berili, telua, liti, natri, and lantan respectively
The -gen suffix is lost, e.g., nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen become nitơ, ôxy and hiđrô, respectively

A minority of elements, mostly those not suffixed with -ium, retain their full name, e.g.,

Tungsten becomes volfram.
Bismuth becomes bitmut.
Aluminium becomes nhôm, because the ending -nium has a similar pronunciation. It was the first element to be known in English in Vietnam.
Elements with the -on suffix 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 have common shorter forms.
Unlike the other halogens, astatine retains its suffix.
Antimony is shortened to antimon, and arsenic to asen; these names are similar to the German ones.

Some elements have multiple names, for instance, potassium is known as pô-tát and kali.
Update in 2018 General Education Program, chemistry section:

Integration principles: Chemical nomenclature is used according to recommendations of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry with reference to Vietnamese Standards, consistent with Vietnamese practice, gradually meeting the requirements of unification and integration.
Practical principles: Use the names of 13 elements commonly used in Vietnamese: gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, aluminum, zinc, sulfur, tin, nitrogen, sodium, potassium and mercury; At the same time, there are English terms for easy reference. Compounds of these elements are named according to IUPAC recommendations

Periodic tables

Articles

by John Fryer and Xu Shou