Chinese characters for chemical elements

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The Chinese characters for chemical elements, along with those for some chemical compounds (mostly organic), are the last characters that were officially created and recognized in the Chinese-speaking world. These characters are contrasted to those that are constantly being coined for dialectal usage.

Some chemical elements, including gold (金), silver (銀), copper (銅), iron (鐵), lead (鉛), tin (錫), and mercury (汞), did not require new characters at all, as they were well known before the conception of modern chemistry and atomic theory.

New characters were made for those that did not have their characters, using the phono-semantic principle that is already used in over 90% of existing Chinese characters. Each phono-semantic character consists of a semantic part, indicating meaning, and a phonetic part, indicating pronunciation. For chemical elements, the principle was applied in the following way:

  1. The "semantic part" refers to its usual state at room temperature and standard pressure. Metals (except mercury) contain the radical or jīn ("gold"); for solid nonmetals shí ("stone"); for liquid elements or シ shuǐ ("water"); and for gases ("steam").
  2. The "phonetic part" represents a partial transliteration of the element. For example, 氦 (helium) contains the "phonetic part" 亥 (haì).

A few characters, though, are not "phono-semantic", but are "semantic-semantic". They also comprise of two parts, one referring to their state at room temperature and standard pressure, another being descriptive of their properties. These include:

  • 氧 (oxygen): the part is the short form for (to feed, maintain), as oxygen is the gas for human survival.
  • 氫 (hydrogen): the part is the short form for (light in weight).
  • 氯 (chlorine): the part is the short form for (green).

Note that some of those "new characters" are not indeed new: they are instead archaic characters, whose original meanings have been obscure for long, such as (Protactinium), (Beryllium) and (Chromium).

Most elements have the same name in Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese but use a different variant of the same base character. The exceptions are the transuranium elements; as most of these elements were discovered after the establishment of People's Republic of China in 1949, they have been given different names in Traditional and Simplified Chinese as the former is still used in the Republic of China while the latter has been adopted by the People's Republic of China.

Traditional characters for elements with atomic numbers 104 and above were only added in Unicode 3.1 (2001) as surrogate pairs that are part of the CJK Ideographs Extension B character set; many operating systems and web browsers do not support the display of surrogate pair characters. They are thus displayed twice in the traditional characters table below, as both the surrogate pair characters themselves and as combinations of phonetic components. Simplified characters for elements 104 and above have not been encoded as of Unicode 4.1 (2005) and are thus given only as combinations of phonetic components in the simplified characters table below.

Contents

[edit] Legend

Chemical Series of the Periodic Table
Alkali metals Alkaline earths Lanthanide Actinides Transition metals
Poor metals Metalloids Nonmetals Halogens Noble gases

Color coding for atomic numbers:

  • Elements numbered in blue are liquids at room temperature;
  • those in green are gases at room temperature;
  • those in black are solid at room temperature;
  • those in red are synthetic and do not occur naturally (all are solid at room temperature).
  • those in gray have not yet been discovered (they also have muted fill colors indicating the likely chemical series they would fall under).

[edit] Simplified Chinese

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
1 1
H
2
He
2 3
Li
4
Be
5
B
6
C
7
N
8
O
9
F
10
Ne
3 11
Na
12
Mg
13
Al
14
Si
15
P
16
S
17
Cl
18
Ar
4 19
K
20
Ca
21
Sc
22
Ti
23
V
24
Cr
25
Mn
26
Fe
27
Co
28
Ni
29
Cu
30
Zn
31
Ga
32
Ge
33
As
34
Se
35
Br
36
Kr
5 37
Rb
38
Sr
39
Y
40
Zr
41
Nb
42
Mo
43
Tc
44
Ru
45
Rh
46
Pd
47
Ag
48
Cd
49
In
50
Sn
51
Sb
52
Te
53
I
54
Xe
6 55
Cs
56
Ba

71
Lu
72
Hf
73
Ta
74
W
75
Re
76
Os
77
Ir
78
Pt
79
Au
80
Hg
81
Tl
82
Pb
83
Bi
84
Po
85
At
86
Rn
7 87
Fr
88
Ra

103
Lr
104
Rf
钅卢
105
Db
钅杜
106
Sg
钅喜
107
Bh
钅波
108
Hs
钅黑
109
Mt
钅麦
110
Ds
钅达
111
Rg
钅仑
112
Uub
113
Uut
114
Uuq
115
Uup
116
Uuh
117
Uus
118
Uuo
镧系元素 57
La
58
Ce
59
Pr
60
Nd
61
Pm
62
Sm
63
Eu
64
Gd
65
Tb
66
Dy
67
Ho
68
Er
69
Tm
70
Yb
锕系元素 89
Ac
90
Th
91
Pa
92
U
93
Np
94
Pu
95
Am
96
Cm
97
Bk
98
Cf
99
Es
100
Fm
101
Md
102
No

View as an image


[edit] Traditional Chinese

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
1 1
H
2
He
2 3
Li
4
Be
5
B
6
C
7
N
8
O
9
F
10
Ne
3 11
Na
12
Mg
13
Al
14
Si
15
P
16
S
17
Cl
18
Ar
4 19
K
20
Ca
21
Sc
22
Ti
23
V
24
Cr
25
Mn
26
Fe
27
Co
28
Ni
29
Cu
30
Zn
31
Ga
32
Ge
33
As
34
Se
35
Br
36
Kr
5 37
Rb
38
Sr
39
Y
40
Zr
41
Nb
42
Mo
43
Tc
44
Ru
45
Rh
46
Pd
47
Ag
48
Cd
49
In
50
Sn
51
Sb
52
Te
53
I
54
Xe
6 55
Cs
56
Ba

71
Lu
72
Hf
73
Ta
74
W
75
Re
76
Os
77
Ir
78
Pt
79
Au
80
Hg
81
Tl
82
Pb
83
Bi
84
Po
85
At
86
Rn
7 87
Fr
88
Ra

103
Lr
104
Rf
105
Db
𨧀
106
Sg
𨭎
107
Bh
𨨏
108
Hs
𨭆
109
Mt
110
Ds
111
Rg
112
Uub
113
Uut
114
Uuq
115
Uup
116
Uuh
117
Uus
118
Uuo
Lanthanides
鑭系元素
57
La
58
Ce
59
Pr
60
Nd
61
Pm
62
Sm
63
Eu
64
Gd
65
Tb
66
Dy
67
Ho
68
Er
69
Tm
70
Yb
Actinides
錒系元素
89
Ac
90
Th
91
Pa
92
U
93
Np
94
Pu
95
Am
96
Cm
97
Bk
98
Cf
99
Es
100
Fm
101
Md
102
No

View as an image


[edit] External links