sulfur (硫) had been used to make gunpowder since at least the 10th century in China.Ĭharacters based on European pronunciations.Some non-metals were already named in Chinese as well, because their minerals were in widespread use. These include the long-established group of "Five Metals" (五金) - gold (金), silver (銀/银), copper (銅/铜), iron (鐵/铁), and tin (錫/锡) - as well as lead (鉛/铅) and mercury (汞). 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. New names and symbols are decided upon by the China National Committee for Terminology in Science and Technology. Unlike characters for unofficial varieties of Chinese (e.g., written Cantonese) or other now-defunct ad hoc characters (e.g., those by the Empress Wu), 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). In Chinese, characters for the elements are the last officially created and recognized characters in the Chinese writing system. Native phonetic writing systems are primarily used for element names in Japanese ( Katakana), Korean ( Hangul) and Vietnamese ( chữ Quốc ngữ). 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. 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.
![chemistry periodic table names chemistry periodic table names](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/60/21/50/602150d5c5a89e2fcf1c0777edfe70e5.jpg)
The names for chemical elements in East Asian languages, along with those for some chemical compounds (mostly organic), are among the newest words to enter the local vocabularies.