【精选】_电气_词源考_电气_词源考.pdf

2007 4 Vol.22 No. 4 22 4 TRANSACTIONS OF CHINA ELECTROTECHNICAL SOCIETY Apr. 2007 100083 1851 electric fluid electricity TM1 The Derivation of Chinese “Diànqì” Corresponding to English “Electricity” Lei Yinzhao Beihang University Beijing 100083 China Abstract The derivation of Chinese terminology “diànqì” is investigated on collecting and analyzing historical materials. The results are as follows. “Diànqì” is a word with two syllables “diàn” and “qì”, where “diàn” is an adjective to modify the noun “qì”. “Diànqì” denotes a kind of “qì” which has electrical characteristics, where “qì” generally denotes some kind of ultrafine matter in Chinese ancient philosophy. The Chinese ancient “qì” hypothesis is similar to the western electric fluid hypothesis. The Chinese philosopher Wang Chong in Eastern Han Dynasty used “qì” hypothesis to explain the attraction phenomena of electricity and magnetism in his literature Lunheng . Bowutongshu , which is written by D. J. MacGowan (1814-1893) and published in China in 1851, may be the literature in which the Chinese terminology “diànqì” was firstly used. “Diànqì” seems to be metaphrased from the English phrase “electric fluid”, and be paraphrased from the English word “electricity”. The instantaneous communicating function of telegram accelerated the creation of the Chinese terminolog