Modern Scientific Terms in East Asia: Their Births and Modifications

In the four countries with the Chinese character traditon-China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, modem scientific terms are basically Chinese-based. When the Western modem sciences were introduced into these areas after the 17th century, new words were coined first in China and Japan. And the new terms were gradually adopted by the rest of countries. With the successful rise of Japan as a modern state at the turn of the century, however, the Japanese versions seemed to have achieved the dominant position in the science-technology in the areas. The trend toward a unity in the scientific terminology had met with the nationalistic reactions, first in China and then in other countries. With the rising nationalism particularly after the World War I, scientific expressions underwent divergence courses in the areas. For the development of science today interchanges of ideas and informations are imperative. This trend for diversification of scientific terms will greatly hamper communications among the scientists and technologists in these four countries. Yet there seems to be no formal and systematic efforts today for the reunification of the terminology.