東京化学会における元素名の統一過程 -元素の日本語名の成立過程の研究(2)-

抄録

This paper deals with the historical process of the standardization of the Japanese element names by the Tokyo Kagakukai (the Chemical Society of Tokyo) in the 1880-1900. A committee for establishment of the Japanese equivalents of Western chemical terms was formed in 1881 under Tokyo Kagakukai (the predecessor of the present Chemical Society of Japan). Up to 1888 the committee members were re-elected several times. The first proposal of the Japanese nomenclature of elements by the committee was published in the journal of Tokyo Kagakukai-shi in 1886. The second proposal was published in the book of Kagaku Yakugoshu in 1891. The third proposal was published in the book of Kagaku Goi in 1900 under the newly organized committee. Placing all of the element names contained in the 1886 and 1891 proposals into four categories, we found ；(1)katakana transliterations from English; (2) katakana transliterations from German ; (3) katakana transliterations of words common to English, German and Latin ; and (4) translations of Chinese characters. If we take notice of the katakana element names, we see that the number of transliterations from English is nearly to that from German. This is the result of the circumstances involving Japanese chemists at that time, when there were both an Anglo-American school and a German school, so that both English and German element names were considered in the course of the determination of element names. On the other hand, looking at the katakana element names in the 1900 proposal, German is prior to English in the group of words where the English element names differ from the German element names. In the case of katakana transliterated element names, the use of German element names was adopted as a standard. The field of science in Japan became under the strong German influence at that time.