Science in Asian Translation

By Jing Wang and En-Hui Hsieh

While scientists in Asia often just use Western terms such as "DNA" for specific concepts, there are lots of very interesting translations of these terms. They usually give us wonderful insights into the actual concepts behind the science, and sometimes they are simply poetic. This site is intended to be a collection of these translations - mainly from English to Chinese and back again to English, but almost any interesting "journey in translation" is fair game.

Scientific Categories

Biology in Chinese (生物 sheng wuˋ) literally means live (生 sheng) animals/material (物 wuˋ).

Chemistry (化學 huaˋ xueˊ) is the study (學 xueˊ) of change (化 huaˋ) since Chemistry often involves changes in elemental properties.

Medicinal science (醫學 yi xueˊ) in Chinese actually includes anything related to healing; the literal meaning is the study (學 xueˊ) of healing/cure (醫 yi). The Chinese translation of pharmacology (藥理學 yaoˋ liˇ xueˊ) has a more self-explanatory name: the study (學 xueˊ) of medicinal pathology (藥理 yaoˋ liˇ ).

Pathology in Chinese is specifically identifying the pathology of diseases (病理學 bingˋ liˇ xueˊ).

Although the Chinese translation of neurology simply means the study of neurons (神經學 shenˊ jing xueˊ), the Chinese translation of neuron is quite interesting. Neuron (神經 shenˊ jing) has the meaning of “unit of nerves”, and the literal translation of nerve is the passage (經 jing) of god/spirit (神 shenˊ). Perhaps when people first studied the nervous system, it seemed so magical that there must be god in it.

Besides biomedical related categories, Physics in Chinese is named the property/law(理 liˇ ) of materials. The word 理 (li ˇ) has a conceptual meaning that usually indicates pathology or how things work.

As for engineering, its Chinese literal meaning is work process (工程 gong chengˊ), which comes from the fact that engineers design and build things.

Genetics and Molecular Biology

DNA, called 脱氧核糖核酸 in Chinese, is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used during development and functioning of all known living organisms. Its Chinese name is defined based on its chemical structure.

In eukaryotic cells, DNA and protein are organized into chromatin (染色质 Ran Se Zhi). Chromatin is then packaged together into chromosomes  (染色体 Ran Se Ti). 染 means dye in English, while 色 means color. 质 and 体 mean material and object separately. Since the material can be organized into an object, it consistent with chromatin forming a chromosome. All together, chromosome means an object that can be dyed into color (from the Greek words for "color" and "body"). This perfectly describes the observation that chromosomes can be strongly stained by particular dyes. The most important protein involved in chromatin organization is Histone, which is called 组蛋白。蛋白 means protein, and 组 can have two different meanings. When used as noun, 组 means group; when used as verb, 组 means organizing. Thus, the whole word 组蛋白 can be understood as a group of proteins that can organize DNA into certain structures, such as chromatin.

Cell Biology and Protein Biochemistry

Many cellular components are made of proteins (from the Greek word for "primary, or first"). Most of the proteins are named in Chinese by their function. Protein, in Chinese, is "蛋白質". Each character individually means "egg" (蛋, dan), "white" (白, bai), and "material or consistency" (質, zhi). The structural protein actin, for example, is a protein named for its function. Its Chinese translation, "肌動蛋白", means muscle moving protein. "肌" (Ji) is muscle. "動" (dong) means move. "蛋白" (dan bai) again means protein. Literally however, it is still "muscle moving egg white."

Other proteins that belong in a particular category of cellular function sometimes have their own special name. Enzyme, for instance, is called "酶" or "酵素". "酵素" (xiao su) which literally means element (素, su) that ferments (酵, xiao); whereas "酶" (mei) is commonly used in the way "-ase" is used in English to describe enzymes. A good example of that is "激酶". "激" (ji) means activating, or exciting and "酶" (mei) is enzyme. These two characters combined means kinase (from the Greek word for movement) in Chinese.

Immunology

In Chinese, Immunity is called "免疫" (miǎn yì). 免 means "avoidance", while 疫 means "epidemic disease". So, in general, it means "avoid epidemic disease", which is not too different from its meaning in English, which refers to the resistance of an organism to infection or disease.

There are two different types of immunity, innate immunity and adaptive immunity. Innate immunity (先天免疫 Xian Tian Mian Yi) comprises the cells and mechanisms that defend the host from infection by other organisms in a non-specific manner. 先天 refers to the fact that this ability exists when we are born. Therefore, innate immunity in Chinese refers to the ability we naturally have to fight against infectious disease. Meanwhile, adaptive immunity (适应免疫) is composed of highly specialized, systemic cells and processes that eliminate or prevent pathogenic challenges. In Chinese, it is translated from English directly from its meaning.

There is another way to categorize the immune system. Based on the components involved in the immune response, immunity can be divided into the humoral immune response, which is mediated by secreted antibodies, and the cellular immune response, which involves T lymphocytes. The Chinese name for the humoral immune response is 体液免疫反应 （Ti Ye Mian Yi Fan Ying).  体 means "body", while 液 means "fluid", and 反应 means "response". So, all together, 体液免疫反应 means "body fluid immune response" which reflects the fact that the secreted antibody is mainly distributed in the extracellular fluid of the whole body. When it comes to the cellular immune response, in Chinese, it is called 细胞免疫反应。细 means "small, or tiny", and 胞 means "placenta"; however, when these two words are together, it means "cell", and indicates T lymphocytes which are important for this component of the immune response.

Pharmacology

The words "medicine" and "drug" have the same meaning in Chinese even though they can suggest different things in English. The word 藥 (Yaoˋ) only means medicine in Chinese (same in Japanese kanji). For illegal drugs, Chinese gave it a specific term, poisonous items (毒品, duˊ pinˇ), in which 毒 (duˊ) means poisonous and 品 (pinˇ) means items. However, 藥 (Yaoˋ) can sometimes be used for poison if you add a "poisonous" in front of the word "medicine", 毒藥 (duˊ yaoˋ).

Many famous drugs have their Chinese name translated by sound. Chinese language is flexible in choosing characters with the same sound; people choose the character with meanings that most closely represents the item when they translate with sounds.

Marijuana, for example, is called 大麻 (Daˋ Maˊ) in Chinese; its literal meaning is "big numb" (daˋ maˊ). Coincidentally, if you pronounce the words with the wrong tone, you might accidentally be saying big (daˋ) mother (ma) instead.

Amphetamine in Chinese is called 安非他命 (An Fei Ta Mingˋ, sound-translated), 安(An) means good/safe, 非 (Fei) means not or negative, 他 (Ta) is he/his, 命 (Mingˋ) stands for life. Together, 安非他命 (An Fei Ta Mingˋ) can be explained as not good for one's life.