Translators of chemical translations in the late Qing Dynasty translated element terms in several ways: connected with Chinese natural object nouns and recorded new meanings with the same characters of the nouns, created translated names, used common words, borrowed from inherent Chinese characters, and created new character. Translators use or create characters according to different motivations, and the selected characters may accord with the components of the characters coincidentally, resulting in one character with multiple translations. As different translators translated the foreign names of the same element, different motivations for selecting/creating characters, or the same motivations with different components of the characters, resulting in different characters with the same usage. Because of the influence of the words used in the translation of Hua Xue Jian Yuan and the requirements for the systematic use of words, most of the words used for liberal translation that are related to the natural nouns have been retained, and the other words have been almost eliminated. The reasons for the elimination include: the selection of inherent Chinese characters leads to an imbalance in the Chinese character system, the inconvenience of the recognition/use of borrowed and created characters, the phenomenon of one character with multiple translations and different characters with the same usage, etc.

• 牛振(鄭州大學) | Zhen NIU