Chinese characters for chemical elements

Chemical element

A chemical element is a pure chemical substance consisting of one type of atom distinguished by its atomic number, which is the number of protons in its nucleus. Familiar examples of elements include carbon, oxygen, aluminum, iron, copper, gold, mercury, and lead.As of November 2011, 118 elements...

s 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

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

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

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

use the characters as the predominant way of naming elements. On the other hand, the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese and Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

ns primarily employ native alphabets for the names of the elements (Katakana

Katakana

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...

and Hangul

Hangul

Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...

, respectively).

Chinese

In Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, 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

Written Cantonese

Cantonese has the most well-developed written form of all Chinese varieties apart from the standard varieties of Mandarin and Classical Chinese. Standard written Chinese is based on Mandarin, but when spoken word for word as Cantonese, it sounds unnatural because its expressions are ungrammatical...

) or other now-defunct ad hoc characters (e.g., those by the Empress Wu

Chinese characters of Empress Wu

Chinese characters of Empress Wu, or the Zetian characters , are Chinese characters introduced by Empress Wu Zetian, the only reigning female in the history of China, to demonstrate her power. The characters were not created by the Empress herself, but were suggested by an official named Zong...

), 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

Middle school

Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...

Native characters

Some metallic elements were already familiar to the Chinese, as their ore

Ore

An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....

s were already excavated and used extensively in China for construction, alchemy

Alchemy

Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...

, and medicine. These include the traditional "Five Metals" (五金) — gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

(金), silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

(銀), copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

(銅), iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

(鐵), and tin

Tin

Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

(錫) — as well as lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

(鉛) and mercury

Mercury (element)

Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...

(汞).

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

carbon
Carbon
Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...

(碳) in the form of charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...
boron
Boron
Boron is the chemical element with atomic number 5 and the chemical symbol B. Boron is a metalloid. Because boron is not produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, it is a low-abundance element in both the solar system and the Earth's crust. However, boron is concentrated on Earth by the...

(硼) as part of borax
Borax
Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. It is usually a white powder consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water.Borax has a wide variety of uses...
sulfur
Sulfur
Sulfur or sulphur is the chemical element with atomic number 16. In the periodic table it is represented by the symbol S. It is an abundant, multivalent non-metal. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with chemical formula S8. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow...

(硫) had been used to make gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...

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

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

. These new elements therefore required new characters, which were invented using the phono-semantic principle

Chinese character classification

All Chinese characters are logograms, but there are several derivative types. These include a handful which derive from pictograms and a number which are ideographic in origin, but the vast majority originated as phono-semantic compounds . In older literature, Chinese characters in general may be...

. Each character consists of two parts, to signify the meaning and to hint at the sound:

The semantic (meaning) part is also the radical
Radical (Chinese character)
A Chinese radical is a component of a Chinese character. The term may variously refer to the original semantic element of a character, or to any semantic element, or, loosely, to any element whatever its origin or purpose...

of the character. It refers to the element's usual state at room temperature
Room temperature
-Comfort levels:The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers has listings for suggested temperatures and air flow rates in different types of buildings and different environmental circumstances. For example, a single office in a building has an occupancy ratio per...

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.

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 Lithium Lithium is a soft, silver-white metal that belongs to the alkali metal group of chemical elements. It is represented by the symbol Li, and it has the atomic number 3. Under standard conditions it is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly...
金 +	甲 jiǎ	= 鉀 (jiǎ)	kalium, Latin name for potassium Potassium Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K and atomic number 19. Elemental potassium is a soft silvery-white alkali metal that oxidizes rapidly in air and is very reactive with water, generating sufficient heat to ignite the hydrogen emitted in the reaction.Potassium and sodium are...
金 +	內 nèi	= 鈉 (nà)*	natrium, Latin name for sodium Sodium Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal and is a member of the alkali metals; its only stable isotope is 23Na. It is an abundant element that exists in numerous minerals, most commonly as sodium chloride...
金 +	弟 tì or dì	= 銻 (tì)*	antimony Antimony Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite...
金 +	臬 niè	= 鎳 (niè)	nickel Nickel Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...
金 +	鬲 gé	= 鎘 (gé)	cadmium Cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, bluish-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Similar to zinc, it prefers oxidation state +2 in most of its compounds and similar to mercury it shows a low...
金 +	烏 wū	= 鎢(wù)*	Wolfram, German name for tungsten Tungsten Tungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...
金 +	必 bì	= 鉍 (bì)	bismuth Bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally uncombined, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead...
金 +	由 yóu	= 鈾 (yóu)	uranium Uranium Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
金 +	呂 lǚ	= 鋁 (lǚ)	aluminium Aluminium Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
石 +	典 diǎn	= 碘 (diǎn)	iodine Iodine Iodine is a chemical element with the symbol I and atomic number 53. The name is pronounced , , or . The name is from the , meaning violet or purple, due to the color of elemental iodine vapor....
气 +	亥 hài	= 氦 (hài)	helium Helium Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
气 +	弗 fú	= 氟 (fú)	fluorine Fluorine Fluorine is the chemical element with atomic number 9, represented by the symbol F. It is the lightest element of the halogen column of the periodic table and has a single stable isotope, fluorine-19. At standard pressure and temperature, fluorine is a pale yellow gas composed of diatomic...
气 +	乃 nǎi	= 氖 (nǎi)	neon Neon Neon is the chemical element that has the symbol Ne and an atomic number of 10. Although a very common element in the universe, it is rare on Earth. A colorless, inert noble gas under standard conditions, neon gives a distinct reddish-orange glow when used in either low-voltage neon glow lamps or...
*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

Heavy metals

A heavy metal is a member of a loosely-defined subset of elements that exhibit metallic properties. It mainly includes the transition metals, some metalloids, lanthanides, and actinides. Many different definitions have been proposed—some based on density, some on atomic number or atomic weight,...

, 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 Platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pt and an atomic number of 78. Its name is derived from the Spanish term platina del Pinto, which is literally translated into "little silver of the Pinto River." It is a dense, malleable, ductile, precious, gray-white transition metal...	See note ¥
氵 +	臭 (stinky)	= 溴 xiù	bromine Bromine Bromine ") is a chemical element with the symbol Br, an atomic number of 35, and an atomic mass of 79.904. It is in the halogen element group. The element was isolated independently by two chemists, Carl Jacob Löwig and Antoine Jerome Balard, in 1825–1826...	odorous (brómos in Greek also means "stench")
气 +	羊, short for 養 (to nourish/foster)	= 氧 yǎng	oxygen Oxygen Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...	A continuous supply of oxygenated air nourishes almost all animals
气 +	巠, short for 輕 (light-weight)	= 氫 qīng	hydrogen Hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...	the lightest of all elements
气 +	彔, short for 綠 (green)	= 氯 lǜ	chlorine Chlorine Chlorine is the chemical element with atomic number 17 and symbol Cl. It is the second lightest halogen, found in the periodic table in group 17. The element forms diatomic molecules under standard conditions, called dichlorine...	greenish yellow in color
气 +	炎, short for 淡 (diluted)	= 氮 dàn	nitrogen Nitrogen Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...	"dilutes" breathable air
石 +	粦, short for 燐 (glow)	= 磷 lín	phosphorus Phosphorus Phosphorus is the chemical element that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. A multivalent nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus as a mineral is almost always present in its maximally oxidized state, as inorganic phosphate rocks...	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

Age of Discovery

The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration and the Great Navigations , was a period in history starting in the early 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century during which Europeans engaged in intensive exploration of the world, establishing direct contacts with...

Tables

Many operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

s and web browser

Web browser

A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...

s do not support the display of some of the newer elements, since the characters for elements with atomic number

Atomic number

In chemistry and physics, the atomic number is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom and therefore identical to the charge number of the nucleus. It is conventionally represented by the symbol Z. The atomic number uniquely identifies a chemical element...

s 104 and above were only added in Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

3.1 (2001) as surrogate pairs that are part of the CJK

CJK

CJK is a collective term for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which is used in the field of software and communications internationalization.The term CJKV means CJK plus Vietnamese, which constitute the main East Asian languages.- Characteristics :...

Ideograph

Ideograph is a term coined by rhetorical scholar and critic Michael Calvin McGee describing the use of particular words and phrases as political language in a way that captures particular ideological positions...

s 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

1
H
氢

2
He
氦

3
Li
锂

4
Be
铍

5
B
硼

6
C
碳

7
N
氮

8
O
氧

9
F
氟

10
Ne
氖

11
Na
钠

12
Mg
镁

13
Al
铝

14
Si
硅

15
P
磷

16
S
硫

17
Cl
氯

18
Ar
氩

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

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

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

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
钅哥

113
Uut

114
Uuq

115
Uup

116
Uuh

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

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.