ChemistryForever
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German chemistry nomenclature
Naming chemicals is pretty similar in english french italian or spanish and maybe even other european languages. But in german it seems sometimes very
different. Can someone give me a page or something that would explain me the basis of naming chemicals in german? Many reagents are from germany and
basically you see names in german 
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Sigmatropic
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Could you give examples?
I mean the really archaic ones like salzsaure or salptersaure originate from what they were originally distilled from with oil of vitriol (sulphuric
acid), namely salt and saltpeter.
Otherwise I usually just see an e missing at the end. Dimethylformamid, triethylamin, ect.
In fact I find the French and English naming weird. muriatic acid for example. Maybe this is because my native language has germanic origins.
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ChemistryForever
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examples would be bernsteinsaure, buttersaure, essigsaure, ameisensaure. I figured out about salz and salpeter, as they are more obvious, but what
about these ones ? basically the acids are a bit awkward, the other ones are generally ok.
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kmno4
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| Quote: | | In fact I find the French and English naming weird. muriatic acid for example. Maybe this is because my native language has germanic origins.
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German and English languages are very, very much alike - it is because English language comes from (old) German one.
I can see clearly this similarity, because my native language does not have German origin 
For "A German-English Dictionary for Chemists" (1917) visit archive.org. or libgen ( for version from 1950)
Слава Україні !
Героям слава !
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Tsjerk
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Buttersaure (buteric acid) is called boterzuur in Dutch. It was originally made from butter. I did that one a long time ago.
Bernsteinsaure was first distilled from barnsteen (Dutch). Ameisen is the German word for ants, in Dutch it is called mierenzuur, because the acid
ants make is Ameisensaure (formic acid)
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Bezaleel
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And Essigsäure can be guessed if you just pronounce it and compare to the pronunciation of acetic acid. Essig = vinegar, which it originally was
extracted from.
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Tsjerk
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Essig is also a common German way to say acidic (which also sound a bit the same), I heard it a lot when talking about food. The "-ig" ending of any
word is comparable with the -ish or -ic ending of a word in English, so literally translated it comes down to acid-ic. Although "ess" doesn't mean
acid....
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