Czech chemical nomenclature
Encyclopedia
Foundations of the Czech
chemical nomenclature (official term in Czech
: české chemické názvosloví) and terminology were laid during the 1820s and 1830s. These early naming conventions fit the Czech language and, being mostly work of a single person, provided consistent way to name chemical compounds. Over the time the nomenclature expanded considerably, following the recommendations by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
(IUPAC) in recent era.
Unlike nomenclature used in biology or in medicine the chemical nomenclature stays closer to the Czech language, uses Czech pronunciation and inflection rules but developed its own - very complex - system of morphemes (taken from Greek and Latin), grammar, syntax, punctuation and use of brackets and numerals. Certain terms (e.g. etanol - ethanol
) use the phonetic transcription but the rules for spelling are inconsistent.
in the Czech lands
used obscure and inconsistent terminology to describe their experiments. Edward Kelley
, an alchemist at the court
of Rudolf II, even invented his own secret language. Growth of the industry the region during the 19th century and the nationalistic fervour of the Czech National Revival
resulted in development of Czech terminologies for natural
and applied science
s.
Jan Svatopluk Presl
(1791–1849), an all-round natural scientist, proposed a new Czech nomenclature and terminology in books Lučba čili chemie zkusná (1828–35) and Nerostopis (1837). Presl had invented Czech neologisms for most of the then known chemical element
s; ten of these including vodík - hydrogen
, kyslík - oxygen
, uhlík - carbon
, dusík - nitrogen
and křemík - silicon
has entered into the language. Presl also created naming conventions for oxides where electronegative component of the compound became noun
and the electropositive component became adjective
. The adjectives obtained suffix according to valence number
of the component they represented (originally there were five suffixes: -ný, -natý, -itý, -ový, -elý, later expanded to eight by Vojtěch Šafařík
: -ný, -natý, -itý, -ičitý, -ičný and -ečný, -ový, -istý, -ičelý). Salts were identified by suffix -an added to the noun. Many of the terms created by Presl derive from Latin
, German
or Russian
; only some had succeeded and stayed in use.
Similar attempt, published in "Orbis pictus" (1852), by Karel Slavoj Amerling
(1807-1884) to create Czech names for chemical elements (and to order the elements into a structure, similar to the effort by Russian chemist Nikolay Beketov) was not successful.
Later work on the nomenclature was done by Vojtěch Šafařík
(1829-1902). In 1876 Šafařík started to publish journal "Listy chemické", the first chemistry journal in Austria-Hungary
(today issued under the name "Chemické listy") and this journal has played important role in codification of the nomenclature and terminology. On a congress of Czech chemists in 1914 the nomenclature was reworked and the new system became normative in 1918. Alexandr Sommer-Batěk (1874-1944) and Emil Votoček
(1872-1950) were the major proponents of this change. The original Presl's conventions remained in use but formed only small part of the naming system.
Several changes were applied to the basic terminology during the second half of the 20. century, usually moving closer to the international nomenclature; e.g. old term kysličník was officially replaced by oxid (oxide
), uhlovodan by uhlovodík and later even karbohydrát (carbohydrate
) and spelling of some chemical elements changed; e.g. Berylium should be now written Beryllium
. Adoption of these changes by the Czech public was quite slow and the older terms are still used decades later.
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences
(founded in 1953) took over responsibility for maintenance of the nomenclature and proper implementation of the IUPAC recommendations. After the Velvet Revolution
(1989) this activity has slowed down considerably.
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
chemical nomenclature (official term in Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
: české chemické názvosloví) and terminology were laid during the 1820s and 1830s. These early naming conventions fit the Czech language and, being mostly work of a single person, provided consistent way to name chemical compounds. Over the time the nomenclature expanded considerably, following the recommendations by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations that represents chemists in individual countries. It is a member of the International Council for Science . The international headquarters of IUPAC is located in Zürich,...
(IUPAC) in recent era.
Unlike nomenclature used in biology or in medicine the chemical nomenclature stays closer to the Czech language, uses Czech pronunciation and inflection rules but developed its own - very complex - system of morphemes (taken from Greek and Latin), grammar, syntax, punctuation and use of brackets and numerals. Certain terms (e.g. etanol - ethanol
Ethanol
Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a...
) use the phonetic transcription but the rules for spelling are inconsistent.
History
Medieval alchemistsAlchemy
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...
in the Czech lands
Czech lands
Czech lands is an auxiliary term used mainly to describe the combination of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia. Today, those three historic provinces compose the Czech Republic. The Czech lands had been settled by the Celts , then later by various Germanic tribes until the beginning of 7th...
used obscure and inconsistent terminology to describe their experiments. Edward Kelley
Edward Kelley
Sir Edward Kelley or Kelly, also known as Edward Talbot was an ambiguous figure in English Renaissance occultism and self-declared spirit medium who worked with John Dee in his magical investigations...
, an alchemist at the court
Noble court
The court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...
of Rudolf II, even invented his own secret language. Growth of the industry the region during the 19th century and the nationalistic fervour of the Czech National Revival
Czech National Revival
Czech National Revival was a cultural movement, which took part in the Czech lands during the 18th and 19th century. The purpose of this movement was to revive Czech language, culture and national identity...
resulted in development of Czech terminologies for natural
Natural science
The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...
and applied science
Applied science
Applied science is the application of scientific knowledge transferred into a physical environment. Examples include testing a theoretical model through the use of formal science or solving a practical problem through the use of natural science....
s.
Jan Svatopluk Presl
Jan Svatopluk Presl
Jan Svatopluk Presl was a Bohemian natural scientist.He was the brother of botanist Karel Bořivoj Presl . The Czech Botanical Society commemorated the two brothers by naming its principal publication Preslia...
(1791–1849), an all-round natural scientist, proposed a new Czech nomenclature and terminology in books Lučba čili chemie zkusná (1828–35) and Nerostopis (1837). Presl had invented Czech neologisms for most of the then known chemical element
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; ten of these including vodík - 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...
, kyslík - 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...
, uhlík - 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...
, dusík - 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...
and křemík - silicon
Silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...
has entered into the language. Presl also created naming conventions for oxides where electronegative component of the compound became noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
and the electropositive component became adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
. The adjectives obtained suffix according to valence number
Valence (chemistry)
In chemistry, valence, also known as valency or valence number, is a measure of the number of bonds formed by an atom of a given element. "Valence" can be defined as the number of valence bonds...
of the component they represented (originally there were five suffixes: -ný, -natý, -itý, -ový, -elý, later expanded to eight by Vojtěch Šafařík
Vojtech Šafarík
Vojtěch Šafařík was a Czech chemist, specializing in inorganic chemistry. He wrote many popular textbooks as well as making over 20,000 observations of variable stars.The crater Šafařík on the Moon is named after him.- External links :*...
: -ný, -natý, -itý, -ičitý, -ičný and -ečný, -ový, -istý, -ičelý). Salts were identified by suffix -an added to the noun. Many of the terms created by Presl derive from Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
or Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
; only some had succeeded and stayed in use.
Similar attempt, published in "Orbis pictus" (1852), by Karel Slavoj Amerling
Karel Slavoj Amerling
Karel Slavoj Amerling was a Czech teacher, writer, and philosopher....
(1807-1884) to create Czech names for chemical elements (and to order the elements into a structure, similar to the effort by Russian chemist Nikolay Beketov) was not successful.
Later work on the nomenclature was done by Vojtěch Šafařík
Vojtech Šafarík
Vojtěch Šafařík was a Czech chemist, specializing in inorganic chemistry. He wrote many popular textbooks as well as making over 20,000 observations of variable stars.The crater Šafařík on the Moon is named after him.- External links :*...
(1829-1902). In 1876 Šafařík started to publish journal "Listy chemické", the first chemistry journal in Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
(today issued under the name "Chemické listy") and this journal has played important role in codification of the nomenclature and terminology. On a congress of Czech chemists in 1914 the nomenclature was reworked and the new system became normative in 1918. Alexandr Sommer-Batěk (1874-1944) and Emil Votoček
Emil Votocek
Emil Votoček was a Czech chemist, composer and music theorist. He is noted for his chemistry textbooks and multilingual dictionaries in both chemistry and music.-Chemistry career:...
(1872-1950) were the major proponents of this change. The original Presl's conventions remained in use but formed only small part of the naming system.
Several changes were applied to the basic terminology during the second half of the 20. century, usually moving closer to the international nomenclature; e.g. old term kysličník was officially replaced by oxid (oxide
Oxide
An oxide is a chemical compound that contains at least one oxygen atom in its chemical formula. Metal oxides typically contain an anion of oxygen in the oxidation state of −2....
), uhlovodan by uhlovodík and later even karbohydrát (carbohydrate
Carbohydrate
A carbohydrate is an organic compound with the empirical formula ; that is, consists only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, with a hydrogen:oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 . However, there are exceptions to this. One common example would be deoxyribose, a component of DNA, which has the empirical...
) and spelling of some chemical elements changed; e.g. Berylium should be now written Beryllium
Beryllium
Beryllium is the chemical element with the symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a divalent element which occurs naturally only in combination with other elements in minerals. Notable gemstones which contain beryllium include beryl and chrysoberyl...
. Adoption of these changes by the Czech public was quite slow and the older terms are still used decades later.
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences
The Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences was established in 1953 to be the scientific center for Czechoslovakia. It was succeeded by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in 1992.-History:...
(founded in 1953) took over responsibility for maintenance of the nomenclature and proper implementation of the IUPAC recommendations. After the Velvet Revolution
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...
(1989) this activity has slowed down considerably.
External links
- Website about the early history of the Czech chemical nomenclature (in Czech)
- Article in a Czech Academy of Sciences bulletin: current problems faced by the Czech chemical nomenclature (2000, section "Současný stav a problémy českého chemického názvosloví")
Organizations
- Journal Chemické listy (nomenclature related articles are in Czech, ISSN 1213-7103, printed version ISSN 0009-2770)
- Czech Chemical Society (Česká společnost chemická, ČSCH, founded in 1866)
- National IUPAC Centre for the Czech Republic