But 硒 was constructed in the late 19th century using the (still accurate) phonetic 西 ( xī), which in Middle Chinese was a level tone character, an open syllable with a vowel ending.

In Middle Chinese 锡 was an entering tone character, a closed syllable ending in -p/-t/-k (or -ʔ in some modern dialects). The phonetic component of 锡, 易 ( yì), was accurate when the character was invented around 3000 years ago, but not now because of sound change. 锡 (tin) and 硒 (selenium) 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 alternative pronunciation xí for tin is recommended by the National Committee for Approval of Terms in Science and Technology (全国科学技术名词审定委员会).

However, this rule was not rigorously followed in the past, and confusingly, the names of tin (锡) and selenium (硒) both have the pronunciation xī with the same tone. Current practice dictates that new names should avoid being homophonous with previous element names or with organic functional groups. Because many characters in modern Chinese are homophones, including for tone, two different phonetic components can be pronounced the same. Since 118 elements have been discovered, over 100 phonetic components are used in naming the elements. For each element character, this is a unique phonetic component. The phonetic (sound) part represents the character's pronunciation and is a partial transliteration of the element. Only four radicals are used for elements: 釒/ 钅 ( jīn 'gold metal') for solid metals, 石 ( shí 'stone, rock') for solid non-metals, 水/ 氵 ( shuǐ 'water') for liquids, and 气 ( qì 'air, steam') for gases. It refers to the element's usual state at room temperature and standard pressure. The semantic (meaning) part is also the radical of the character. Each character consists of two parts, one to signify the meaning and the other to hint at the sound: These new elements therefore required new characters, which were invented using the phono-semantic principle. However, the Chinese did not know about most of the elements until they were isolated during the Industrial Age. 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. 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.

Chemical elements with a