Disputatio:Oxygenium

Lemma

After @Neander:'s edit, the beginning was

'''Oxygenium'''<ref>"Oxygenium": Peter van der Krogt, "[http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/list_element.php?language=la&sort=A Elementa chemica]" apud situm ''Elementymology & Elements Multidict''; ''[http://www.lateinlexikon.com/lexicon_latinum_hodiernum_06_rst.pdf Lexicon Latinum hodiernum]'', sub voce ''Sauerstoff''; [[Reijo Pitkäranta]], ''Lexicon Finnico-Latino-Finnicum''. WSOY, 2001; [[Ebbe Vilborg]], ''Norstedts svensk-latinska ordbok''. Andra upplagan. Norstedts akademiska förlag, 2009.</ref><ref>'''Oxygenum''' apud ''[http://www.encyclo.nl/begrip/OXYGENUM Encyclo.nl]'' vix commendabile.</ref>

Now it's

'''Oxygenum'''<ref>'''Oxygenum''' apud ''[http://www.encyclo.nl/begrip/OXYGENUM Encyclo.nl]'' vix commendabile.</ref> ({{pns|i|n|oxygenum}}; ab [[lingua Graeca antiqua|Gr.]] ὀξύς, acer {{pq|i.e. acidum}}, et Lat. -genus, sicut apud "nubigenum", i.e. {{pq|elementum}} "acidigenum", quod acidum gignit – nam olim putabatur oxygenum proprium acidis esse), vel '''oxygenium''',<ref>"Oxygenium": Peter van der Krogt, "[http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/list_element.php?language=la&sort=A Elementa chemica]" apud situm ''Elementymology & Elements Multidict''; ''[http://www.lateinlexikon.com/lexicon_latinum_hodiernum_06_rst.pdf Lexicon Latinum hodiernum]'', sub voce ''Sauerstoff''; [[Reijo Pitkäranta]], ''Lexicon Finnico-Latino-Finnicum''. WSOY, 2001; [[Ebbe Vilborg]], ''Norstedts svensk-latinska ordbok''. Andra upplagan. Norstedts akademiska förlag, 2009.</ref>

Grufo, why did you reverse the alternatives? You're rejecting two reliable sources (Pitkäranta and Vilborg), or maybe three, in favor of one that Neander marked "vix commendabile." IacobusAmor (disputatio) 18:11, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

@IacobusAmor: In the previous version there weren't two alternatives, there were two discording footnotes about what was presented as a single possibility. I will make a better research now. --Grufo (disputatio) 18:22, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

The alternative to oxygenium was given in boldface as oxygenum in the footnote. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 19:25, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

I don't know if you have access, but I found a very interesting article (1919) about Latin and science: Prideaux, E. B. R.; Prideaux, H. C. (Ianuarii 1919). "Science and the international language". Science Progress (Sage Publications, Inc.) 13 (51): 445-449 . --Grufo (disputatio) 18:58, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Paginam ad statum titulumque priores restitui. Melius erit ante motum disputare. Rationem in summario datum ("Prefer the form without "i") haud satis censeo.

Novum fontem supra citatum commendo. Videamus iterum Peter van der Krogt, "Elementa chemica" apud situm Elementymology & Elements Multidict. Iam ad caput paginae citatur. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:16, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

@Andrew Dalby: I am finding other sources for oxygenum, but I can't add them to the page in this form, since the page presents only one term. Let's restore my last version (keeping "Oxygenium" as page name), so I can add the sources under the right word. P.S. You also broke the source code of one of my cited sources. --Grufo (disputatio) 19:21, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Nothing prevents your adding "sive oxygenum" to the text before the second footnote. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:31, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Done. This is a good old one: "... et qui eum sequebantur oxygenum in omnibus metamorphosibus chemicis agere credebant, quantum oxygeni, in quoque corpore sit et quomodo in id oxygenum agat, explorabant: omnis chemia erat chemia oxygeni" apud Bauer, Guilelmus (1861). De atomis quas philosophia et de rerum natura disciplinae statuunt: Dissertatio inauguralis philosophica. Ploetz. p. 33 . --Grufo (disputatio) 19:37, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Yet more sources for oxygenum...

• Tomtsányi, Adamus (1820). Institutiones Physicae: Pars II. Complectens Physicam Particularem. 2. Institutiones Physicae. Pestini: Typis, et Sumptibus N. Joannis Thomae Trattner. p. 15–17 
• Jaeger, Hermann Joseph (1816). Tractatus physico-medicus de atmosphaera et aere atmosphaerico: nec non de variis gazis, vaporibus, effluviisque in eis contentis, respectu eorum in corpus humanum effectuum. Coloniae Agrippinae: Rommerskirchen. p. 83 

--Grufo (disputatio) 19:44, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

• …And one more: de Candolle, Augustin Pyramus (1802). Astragalogia. Lutetiae: sumptibus Joann. B. Garney. p. 11  --Grufo (disputatio) 19:51, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

• Can anyone explain where the “i” in oxygenium would allegedly come from in all this? Ab Gr. ὀξύς, acer [i.e. acidus], et Lat. -genus, sicut apud "nubigenum", i.e. [elementum] "acidigenum", quod acidum gignit – nam olim putabatur oxygenum proprium acidis esse. --Grufo (disputatio) 19:40, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

(1) Maybe people don't like to stress the rounded front vowel [y] and therefore prefer oxygénium to oxýgenum. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 21:59, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Mmmm I don't know, to me it doesn't sound like a reason good enough for changing words that have a tradition and have been used in the field. Would you simplify the conjugation of Latin verbs just because it's difficult? My opinion at this point is that despite neo-Latinists wish that the world used Latin more often, sometimes they just don't bother reading the very books that would satisfy their desires. --Grufo (disputatio) 23:02, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

(2) Maybe it's a trace of the French final e, seen in oxygène, a term coined (in French) by Antonius Lavoisier in 1777; similarly in nitrogenium, seen in nitrogène, a term coined by Ioannes Antonius Claudius Chaptal in 1790. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:02, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

The pattern for reverse-engineering French into Latin would be Fr. -e -> Lat. -a, but Fr. -ie -> Lat. -ium/-ia. Concerning -ium/-ia you can reverse-engineer also English; and so oxygenium would generate *oxygeny in English. --Grufo (disputatio) 14:39, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

(3) Maybe it's an analog of the i in aluminium and barium and caesium and the names of quite a few other chemical elements. Surely the fact that the names end in the same suffix (-ium) isn't an accident. We have here a set of nouns that want to sound similar and be declined similarly. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:02, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

This might be the most likely explanation. --Grufo (disputatio) 14:50, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

• Someone should read the whole story, but if you go to one of the two sources that currently back oxygenium and click on the element, you will find the story about "nebulium", a supposedly new element that in 1927 was shown being nothing else but oxygen that had lost two electrons (i.e. a cation). Now – just as an idea that popped up in my mind right now – it might be that in 1927 they shortly renamed this oxygen ion from nebulium to oxygenium (sic, in English I mean), but then nobody ever thought anymore about nebulium/oxygenium, and the word, maybe still findable here and there, got mistaken as the Latin word for oxygen. Just a theory, on which I won't spend one more second. --Grufo (disputatio) 23:35, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

«if you go to one of the two sources that currently back oxygenium »: The two reputable sources that prefer oxygenium are Pitkäranta 2001 and Vilborg 2009. Are you referring to a third source? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 02:38, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

There are actually three four sources supporting oxygenium currently in the page. I meant source #1:

1. "Oxygenium": Peter van der Krogt, "Elementa chemica" apud situm Elementymology & Elements Multidict
2. Lexicon Latinum hodiernum, sub voce Sauerstoff
3. Reijo Pitkäranta, Lexicon Finnico-Latino-Finnicum. WSOY, 2001
4. Ebbe Vilborg, Norstedts svensk-latinska ordbok. Andra upplagan. Norstedts akademiska förlag, 2009.

But this is really not important, it was just my five-second-long attempt to explain the “i” in oxygenium, and most likely not how the story went. I am just a bit disappointed, because even if a lexicon prefers oxygenium, why not mentioning oxygenum at all – especially given that it was used and it is the form that ended up in modern languages? --Grufo (disputatio) 13:18, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Your source #3 is TWO sources: Pitkäranta 2001 and Vilborg 2009. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:25, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, bad copy and paste. Fixed now. --Grufo (disputatio) 13:29, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

There is no adjective "nubigenus" in classical Latin, there is only a noun "nubigena" (m.). "Οxygenium" is also not an adjective, but a noun, formed by analogy with many other element names. Demetrius Talpa (disputatio) 22:22, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

This is not the really important thing… Not exactly classical, but there is the adjective in Mamertus Claudianus (vide aerem nubigenum in De statu animae). Nubigenus is only a (beautiful, in my opinion) example; we can use indigenus if we prefer. In any case, with the amount of (good) sources that I have added now, "oxygenium" does not stand a chance to remain as the main option. My two cents. --Grufo (disputatio) 23:04, 13 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Again, it's "indigena" rather than "indigenus -a -um", but there may be late authors, including botanists, who don't follow the rule. Yes, it's a very neat type of compound, a bit special to Latin. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:21, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

As @Andrew Dalby: points out, indigenus, -a, -um looks irregular. Maybe it's an attempt to coin indigenitus on the pattern of the biblical adjective unigenitus, formed from the classical noun unigena. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:12, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

@Demetrius Talpa, Andrew Dalby: Thank you for pointing out the irregularity of nubigena and indigena (cfr. indigenam sermonem in Apul. M. 1, 1) – and at this point, I suppose, of the entire class of compound adjectives from -genus? I guess we can't give analogies then? --Grufo (disputatio) 13:27, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Analogies often guide language, but surprises can occur. According to Stearn, English cultigen is Latin cultigenum, not (as classical indigena and unigena might lead us to suspect), cultigena. By analogy, that may bring into play similar English words, like allergen and antigen, but what then of hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:38, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

«But what then of hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen»: The very same sources that I am posting use hydrogenum, nitrogenum, etc. (I am actually sure I saw hydrogenum, but didn't check nitrogenum – I was focusing on oxygen after all). --Grufo (disputatio) 13:46, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

• We have taurigenus, -a, -um in Macrobius (the Roman Empire was still alive): “taurigeno semine ortum fuisse an humano?”, https://www.loebclassics.com/view/macrobius-saturnalia/2011/pb_LCL512.95.xml --Grufo (disputatio) 14:59, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

«This is not the really important thing…»: Analogy in language is often a highly important thing. It's why native English speakers instantly recognize that words ending in -ous are adjectives, and the noun nous must therefore (in some way) be "foreign," and the names Aldous (as in Huxley) and Thelonious (as in Monk) seem strangely misspelled. That oxygen is one of a class of things whose Latin names most often end in -ium isn't irrelevant, though of course it isn't dispositive either, as exceptions to rules & expectations do occur. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:13, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

IacobusAmor dixit «one of a class of things whose Latin names most often end in -ium isn't irrelevant»: Maybe I did not get what you mean. We have the class of -genus/-gena (irregular as you wish), but what class for -genius? --Grufo (disputatio) 13:41, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

The "things" here are the elementa chemica. For names of the most recently discovered of them, -ium is the standard productive suffix: regarding the naming of tennessine, "According to guidelines of IUPAC valid at the moment of the discovery approval [in the year 2016], the permanent names of new elements should have ended in '-ium.'" IacobusAmor (disputatio) 18:25, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

"Eugenius" de εὐγενής, sicut oxygenium, hydrogenium etc. de ὀξυγενής, ὑδρογενής etc. Cf. et simplex "genius. Demetrius Talpa (disputatio) 16:55, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, @Demetrius. And thank you also for the sources that you have added concerning oxygenium. I guess that now this is the most documented page in the entire Vicipaedia! It's a pity the content is not as good yet. So my idea is this: at the beginning there were two names both indifferently used in literature (oxygenum and oxygenium). At some point in the 19th century oxygenum started to prevail, especially concerning the form that would be used in national translations (e.g. you have oxygen in English but not *oxygeny nor *oxygenium, you have oxygène in French but not *oxygènie, you have ossigeno but not *ossigenio in Italian – there however you have It. carbonio vs Fr. carbone! – and so on. In the meanwhile people started to use Latin less and less, and so the whole story might have gone forgotten, kind of – you can see traces of this in one of the sources, Prideaux, 1919, in which they talk as if they have to invent the Latin name for oxygen, almost as if it did not exist already: “To these would be added ‘oxygenus,’ and the ‘halogenus’ group ‘fluorus, chlorus,’ etc., which would form adjectives ‘chloridus, chloratus,’ etc., or nouns ‘chloridum,’ etc., according to the convention chosen”. Now there is only one question left that I cannot answer: How can a lexicon decide not to mention oxygenum despite it is attested in literature? Doing so might even obstacle finding books that talk about oxygen, if you don't know what word is the correct one that you must look for. --Grufo (disputatio) 17:47, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

More sources for oxygenum (one book is literally called De oxygeno):

• Rinaldi, Clemens (1846). De oxygeno. Papiae: Fusi 
• Assink, Hendrik Jan (1798). Meletemate inauguralia physiologici, chemici et therapeutici argumenti, Volume 1. Hardervici: Typis Everardi Tyhoff, Academiae Typograph.. p. 4 
• Cfr. "Denique demonstratum est, aquam ex hydrogeno et oxygeno constare, et acidum carbonicum ex carbonio et oxygeno", apud Pianeri, Franciscus (1828). De modo quo respiratio perficitur, de epidem utilitatibus, et de variis rationibus, quas ipsa cum animali oeconomia habet.. Patavii: Typis Seminarii. p. 15 
• Cfr. "... quod hydrogenum carbonatum amittat, sed quod oxygenum contineat ...", apud Graham, Charles Alexander (1793). Dissertatio chymica inauguralis de calorico et de evolutione ejus in animalibus. Edinburgi: Adamus Neill cum sociis 

Here you will find it only in genitive (i.e. always gas oxygeni)

• https://books.google.com/books?id=uc1UAAAAcAAJ
• https://books.google.com/books?id=FrVUAAAAcAAJ
• https://books.google.com/books?id=OC7OzQEACAAJ
• https://books.google.com/books?id=LGNUAAAAcAAJ

--Grufo (disputatio) 13:35, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

• Totally irrelevant. I suspect that there might have been a different approach in the past concerning how to include alien words/roots into Latin. Today neo-Latinists simply add -um; but I suspect that in the past the preferred to keep the nominative intact and add -is to the genitive (e.g. gaz, gazis, i.e. III decl.). It would be interesting to investigate further. --Grufo (disputatio) 14:13, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

• About γίγνομαι vs gigno. The form oxygenium would clearly come from ὀξύς + γίγνομαι (like in eugenius, as shown by Demetrius), but oxygenum must come from ὀξύς + -genus (< Lat. gigno), because if it came from γίγνομαι it would have -gonus as suffix, i.e. it would be *oxygonum (as in ἐπίγονος, epigonous). --Grufo (disputatio) 17:55, 14 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Discussion seems to have ended and many sources have been cited. If anyone now wants to propose a move, I suggest using {{Movenda}} and adding here an impartial summary of what the sources show. Then we'll know if we have a consensus. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:13, 25 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

WHO

Everyone who's participated above notwithstanding, the World Health Organization issues lists of INTERNATIONAL NONPROPRIETARY NAMES in pharmacology, as the English wiki says: "in English, Latin, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese, and a drug's INNs are often cognate across most or all of the languages, with minor spelling or pronunciation differences, for example: paracetamol (en), paracetamolum (la) paracétamol (fr) and парацетамол (ru)." Since these are meant to be universally standard terms, perhaps Vicipaedia should use them for its lemmata (whatever they may be). Happily for editors here, the WHO orders the terms alphabetically by their Latin forms! @Andrew Dalby:, @Grufo:, @Neander:, @Demetrius Talpa: IacobusAmor (disputatio) 04:25, 15 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

I think that that could be a good solution for words explicitly backed by the WTO. It might create a nightmare though for non-backed words (it will not list every element, it focuses on drugs). And so we could find ourselves in the paradoxical situation in which a Vicipaedia page has a good source (let's say a good Latin book) that says explicitly that that particular name must be XX, but we might feel that we must harmonize it to other words even without a counter-source (because neither the WTO nor nobody else says anything about it) – and so we will rename it to YY despite our good source. And although it might seem logical to do it, it can be very tricky. The situation is more messy than I thought, to the point that the Lexicon Anglum et Latinum suggests to use morphinum if you are talking about a narcotic (“.narc morphine: morphinum”) but morphina if you are talking about a drug (“.drug morphine: morphina”). I think the best thing that we can do at this point is to collect sources, and of course if the WTO explicit mentions something we report it. At some point in the future, maybe, we will be able to put order. My two cents. --Grufo (disputatio) 05:26, 15 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

The standardized terms appear to be published in a series of lists, but a comprehensive list is said to be available; however, is it available online? A quick search last night didn't find it; no time for searching here today. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:12, 15 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

The task of reconciling the latest scientifically standardized terms with ancient Latin words & concepts has long been faced by writers on subjects that have a place in modern biological taxonomies. Here's an example of the current state of play in that regard:

Carota (Graece καρωτόν), vel Latinitate classica daucum, atque in taxinomia scientifica Daucus carota subspecies sativus.

(See also the exordium of Cicer arietinum.) The talkpages of such articles may record some of the same issues raised here. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:26, 15 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

In languages different from English chemistry names are a bit less standardized (or better, different traditions can cohabit), and so there can be different suffixes depending on the nomenclature system used. As long as things are documented, maybe we also don't need to be too furious about favouring one system or another, it might be enought if we say “XXX according to AAA”, “YYY according to BBB”, etc.; because if in literature this variation exists we cannot ignore it after all. --Grufo (disputatio) 14:01, 16 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

Yes, apparently the WHO-approved form should have priority in the encyclopedia, for example, because it is taught to medical students and passed in exams. And then, if necessary, we can indicate what we find in Latin dictionaries and books of different centuries. Demetrius Talpa (disputatio) 22:37, 16 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

If an accessible list of the WHO approved Latin names is found, it should be added to Vicipaedia:Fontes nominum Latinorum. See the introduction to that page for our current practice with scientific terminology. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:07, 25 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)

"Index nominum: International Drug Directory", where International nonproprietary names are collected, — it cannot be found completely in free access; I added what I could. Demetrius Talpa (disputatio) 20:08, 25 Aprilis 2023 (UTC)