Talk:Chemical elements in East Asian languages

The criteria for choosing Chinese characters for the elements

This was posted on my talkpage by User:Double sharp. Copied here because it is of general interest. -DePiep (talk) 06:46, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind if I put this on your talk page, since this discussion seems the most relevant to it; I should translate it for our page on chemical elements in East Asian languages. The criteria of the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies are (with my translation, which tries valiantly to be natural-sounding in English:

1. 根据尽量少造新字的原则，在元素定名需要造字时，尽量选用已有的古字。
   • When coining names for chemical elements, try to use already existing characters if possible; avoid coining new ones. (Although apparently they made an exception to avoid obviously referring to Japan in nihonium; the Chinese name of Japan is 日本, so I would have thought that 鈤 would have worked fine for nihonium. But no, they made up a new one, making it much less obvious. Why am I not surprised? ^_^)
     • P.S. I suppose I have to take that back now, since 鉨 (traditional) is indeed in Unicode; just not the simplified version. Double sharp (talk) 14:17, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
       • I take it even further back, come to think of it. None of Fr, Ga, Ge, Po, Ru make any reference to the characters used for the eponymous countries in Chinese (unless you follow the ROC/HK name for francium), so there is no reason for Nh to have done so for Japan. Double sharp (talk) 12:24, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
2. 选用或新造汉字应符合国家汉字规范。
   • Selection or construction of new Chinese characters should be consistent with the national standard. (Yes, there is such a thing.)
3. 符合以形声字为主体的汉字书写特点，以体现元素的性质，发音靠近国际命名。
   • The sound and written form of the character should reflect a property of the element and approximate its international name (presumably the English one).
4. 避免与以前的元素名称同音，避免用多音字。
   • Avoid homophony with already named elements, and avoid creating polysyllabic characters. (The latter exist, but almost no one believes it.)
5. 使用简化字，避免用怪异字，选用笔画少的字。
   • Prefer simpler characters with fewer strokes.
6. 为了避免歧义，选字应尽量避开生活常用字和已经用做其他行业专用字的汉字。
   • To avoid ambiguity, avoid commonly used words in everyday life and other fields. (Resurrecting archaic characters is an option per criterion 1, and is in fact a commonly used one.)
7. 尽量采用繁简无差别的字，以利于海峡两岸和汉语圈科技术语的统一。
   • Try to use characters which are the same in traditional and simplified forms (since the "metal" radical is different between the two, I suppose it means the phonetic component on the right), to promote cross-strait unity in Chinese scientific terminology.

Double sharp (talk) 08:07, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

End of copy/paste. Double sharp -DePiep (talk) 06:46, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

BTW 多音字 more commonly means "one character with multiple pronunciations", but that meaning doesn't fit very well here, I think. Double sharp (talk) 10:34, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

OTOH, it could very well mean the usage of 多音字 as phonetic components,and thus discourage it as it is confusing (which reading of the phonetic component should provide the guide)? Double sharp (talk) 10:06, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

List of the names for chemical elements in Chinese, Japanese, Korea, and Vietnamese?

Can someone give such a list for the names of all chemical elements in Chinese, Japanese, Korea, and Vietnamese? Also the pronunciation in these four languages (include Hong Kong’s Chinese), e.g. {11, sodium, 鈉/钠 (nà), ナトリウム (natoriumu), 나트륨 (nateuryum), natri}?

Besides, what are the names of neutronium (element 0) and elements with Z≥119 in these four languages?

Also, there are over 150 languages in Earth, why East Asian languages (not Middle East languages, Africa languages, North Europe languages, etc.) are special and the names for chemical elements in these languages are notable and can have their own article? 125.227.77.253 (talk) 13:42, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I have added the pronunciations for Chinese. (A few differ between the mainland and Taiwan). I have no knowledge of Korean or Vietnamese, but most of the Japanese names are just gairaigo (when not of English, usually of German, e.g. seren Se, teruru Te), and we already cover most of the ones that aren't.

I'm not aware of Chinese names for the undiscovered elements past 118. I guess the most reasonable name for element 119 would be just literally to say 119号元素 (Language Log gave that for Og meaning of course with 118 rather than 119 Double sharp (talk) 12:25, 28 August 2021 (UTC) when it was still unnamed, incidentally). The Chinese Wikipedia article is at zh:Uue, just using the systematic symbol as a name. Following this logic, neutronium ought to be 0号元素 (and indeed that's where the Chinese Wikipedia article is, though mentioning the alternate translation 中子元素 "neutron element"). Although I am not convinced it is a chemical element at all: to have chemical properties, you need electrons. It's not on the standard periodic table, suggesting that this view is the common one.

The translation of the periodic table into Chinese is inherently somewhat interesting due to the challenge it provides: Chinese is pretty resistant to loanwords, and new characters are pretty much never added except for new elements. Double sharp (talk) 07:05, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Also, these characters are interesting (and noteworthy) because they are created specially for an element, and are nopt derived from the (formal) English name.

Periodic table template; and check needed

I have moved the periodic table into {{Periodic table (Chinese names)/sandbox}}, and redesitgned the formatting (Hans character=big in top etc).

I note that there are differences between this table and the wikidata list of characters ([[:Tempalte:Infobox element/symbol-to--overview-IDs|this list from Wikidata). -DePiep (talk) 11:59, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Double sharp: -DePiep (talk) 11:59, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@DePiep: The wikidata list on our Template:Infobox element/symbol-to--overview-IDs uses Traditional Chinese characters (used in Taiwan, HK, Macau), whereas the PT template just made uses Simplified Chinese characters (used in Mainland China, also Malaysia and Singapore). Hence the difference.

I think the sandbox table is a great idea (giving both varieties). However, in this case we need some multiline pronunciations because some element names differ in pronunciation between the two. The complete list for Mandarin dialect (T traditional, S simplified):

• ₁₄Si: T xì, S guī
• ₂₇Co: T gū, S gǔ
• ₄₃Tc: T tǎ, S dé
• ₄₆Pd: T bā, S bǎ
• ₅₀Sn: T xí, S xī
• ₅₁Sb: T tì, S tī
• ₇₁Lu: T liú, S lǔ
• ₈₄Po: T pò, S pō
• ₈₅At: T è, S ài
• ₈₇Fr: T fǎ, S fāng
• ₉₂U: T yòu, S yóu
• ₉₃Np: T nài, S ná
• ₉₇Bk: T běi, S péi
• ₉₈Cf: T kǎ, S kāi
• ₉₉Es: T ài, S āi
• ₁₀₇Bh: T pō, S bō

All others are pronounced the same in both (even if the character looks different). Double sharp (talk) 12:14, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

From two different scripts then. I note that our {{Infobox element/symbol-to-zh}} is a hardcoded copy (Feb 2021) of the (live) Wikidata Property Unicode character (P487). Will try to wikilink to WD.

What do you propose? 2 rows of pron per cell? BTW, if it pronunciation or transliteration (Romanisation)? If pronunciation, we should drop them altogether here; and link the character to wiktionary. -DePiep (talk) 12:33, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@DePiep: It's Pinyin romanisation. But of course, romanisation does give a pronunciation guide, so I used the wrong word.

I'd propose two rows labelled S and T for simplified and traditional, yes. But perhaps only for the sixteen elements I listed which have differences (as the other 102 would look quite repetitive). Double sharp (talk) 12:40, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

If we show two characters, it is starting to defy the whole intention, and the PT becomes out of overview. Maybe a table in the article body could solve this. Then about Pinyin: is it true that it leads to two Romanisations, depending on pronounciation? I thougt that the whole concept of transliteration was to stick to the script not the speech. This too would make the PT useless and out ofg place (we are not a Chinese dictionary). -DePiep (talk) 13:04, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

FYI, this option: wikt:氬 wiktionary link for argon. -DePiep (talk) 13:15, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Pinyin reflects the pronunciation (but is usually called Romanisation anyway).

It's also OK IMHO to keep it the way it is now, because Simplified Characters are by far the more common. The the cases where the characters (and sometimes pronunciations) are really different are all already at the Notes section, so there's not much loss of information. (In all other cases, the Simplified/Traditional differences are pretty predictable.) Double sharp (talk) 13:41, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Notability

There was a template at the top of the article, saying the article may not meet the guidelines for notability. I removed it, on the grounds that there was a discussion, starting in June 2006, over whether the article should be kept, and the decision was "keep". Also, i would hate to see this article deleted; it is a significant subject; after all, how do you name elements in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, languages spoken by ~1/5 of humanity (if you count all forms of Chinese, not just Mandarin)? And Wikipedia has articles on many other things which seem to be less notable. Okay?--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 08:29, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Please review WP:N. "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." The article doesn't have such source yet. (If it is notable simply because it mention naming of something in CJKV languages, then thousands of articles can be created on how anything are being translated into these languages and would make little senses.) C933103 (talk) 08:58, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Why do you imagine these are "translated"? Do you think that elements themselves speak English, then foreigners have to work out different ways of saying them? Anyway, your claim seems to be false: the article has references to real sources such as the China National Committee for Terminology(...). If you want to get rid of some junk, try List of gairaigo and wasei-eigo terms‎, which is a pretty indiscriminate list, unlike the present article. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:21, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Sources from like China National Committee for Terminology are primary sources, and thus doesn't count as "sources that are independent of the subject."

As for why I imagine these are translated? Because I speak the language. And the article also talk about it if you don't speak the language. C933103 (talk) 09:36, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I added several sources that I believe are sufficient to meet WP:GNG, so I removed the tag. I would appreciate a ping here if anyone feels the need to revert. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 05:49, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Order

It said, “For example, 鏷 (protactinium), 鈹 (beryllium), 鉻 (chromium), and 鑭 (lanthanum) are obscure characters meaning "raw iron", "needle", "hook", and "harrow" respectively.” I edited it lightly, so that the four elements ar ordered by atomic number: beryllium, chromium, lanthanum, protactinium. Okay?--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 08:55, 3 March 2022 (UTC)