"Protein" in Chinese and Japanese
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[This is a guest post by Nathan Hopson]
I recently received the following delightful question from Hilary Smith (University of Denver) about the origins of the term for protein in Chinese (dànbáizhì) and Japanese (tanpakushitsu). Thanks to her for pointing me down this lovely rabbit hole!
The hanzi/kanji used are identical (蛋白質), though in written Japanese the term is often タンパク質 or たんぱく質 because the 蛋 character is not one of the “regular use” kanji (常用漢字 jōyō kanji) selected by the officially announced by the Japanese education ministry for mastery during compulsory education.
Hilary wrote that she had circumstantial evidence from some extant texts that, like a lot of other technical vocabulary, this word was coined in Japan to translate a European term in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. That language, she suspected, was German. In German, the word is Eiweiß, which breaks down to Ei (egg) weiß (white). This is a perfect match for the Sino-Japanese term’s first two characters; the third means “stuff” or “substance.”
Hilary asked if I could confirm the German origin and comment on the date of coinage in Japanese. The answer turned out to be a fascinating train of translation with a detour into (and immediately away from) testicular imagery.
The standard answer to the origins of 蛋白質 in Japanese is provided by the Nihongo daijiten (“Great Japanese Dictionary” 日本国語大辞典), last edited in 1995. The dictionary cites Shiba Ryōkai’s (司馬凌海 1839-1879) 1862 七新藥 (Shichi shin’yaku, “Seven new medicines”) as the oldest extant use of the term 蛋白質. That comes in a passage describing protein binding:
「…蛋白質と相結合して以て其功を発す」
…tanpakushitsu to aiketsugō shite, motte sono kō o hassu
Roughly: “[It] binds with protein and thereby has its effect”
In digging just a little further I came across an article by Shiba Tetsuo (芝哲夫) that uncovers evidence of the term used a year earlier, in 1861, by Kawakami Kōmin (川本幸民 1810-1871). Kawakami was the translator to Japanese of Julius Adolph Stöckhardt’s (1809-1886) Die Schule der Chemie (“School of Chemistry”), a highly influential text first published in 1846. It went through over twenty editions and was widely translated. Thus far, the German origins hypothesis for 蛋白質 was holding up well, though the date of origin was pushed back far beyond not just the texts Hilary had access to, but even a year past its canonical coinage.
However, Kawakami was not working directly from German. Japan had centuries of skill and knowledge working from Dutch texts (via Rangaku 蘭学, or “Dutch learning”), and Kawakami was a veteran scholar of the Dutch learning. He therefore turned to an existing Dutch expanded translation by Jan Willem Gunning, De scheikunde van het onbewerktuigde en bewerktuigde rijk: bevattelijk voorgesteld en met eenvoudige proeven opgehelderd: derde Nederduitsche uitgave van Stöckhardt’s Schule der chemie (“The chemistry of the organized and unorganized kingdom… 3rd. ed. of Stöckhardt’s Die Schule der Chemie”). Kawakami’s multi-volume translation was published as化学新書 (Kagaku shinsho, “New book of chemistry”). Therein, he used the term 蛋白質 to translate the Dutch “eiwit,” which is structurally identical to the German Eiweiß.
The remaining mystery, which Shiba addresses, is why Kawakami elected to use the glyph 蛋. In Japanese, “egg” (tamago) can be written multiple ways, including with the single character 卵. Other than in the compound 蛋白質, the 蛋 character is rarely seen outside of Chinese restaurant menus in Japan today because it is not incuded in the jōyō kanji. I won’t speculate on the chicken-and-egg causality problem of whether it fell into disuse and was removed from the list or whether removal from the list is what made it fall out of use. It is enough to say that the 蛋 character is unusual these days. Shiba speculates that Kōmin chose 蛋 for ei rather than 卵 because the latter character visually references testicles whereas 蛋 unambiguously means bird eggs. For those interested, the original passage is:
「蛋白」のオランダ語はeiwitで直訳すると卵白であるが，幸民はなぜ…「蛋」の字をこれに充てたのであろうか。卵は象形文字としてみればわかるように，これは男性の性器を表わす意味がある。幸民はそれを嫌ったのであろうか，鳥のタマゴを意味する。「蛋」を採用して「蛋白」とした… (708-709)
To sum up, we have a German text translated and elaborated into Dutch that was then translated into Japanese. A rather literal translation of “egg white” (Eiweiß/eiwit) as “egg white substance” (蛋白質) yielded the Japanese term that was then imported into written Chinese and given a sinified pronunciation. Also, we avoided male gonads.
Selected readings
- "The transformative power of translation" (7/25/24)
- "Japanese words that are dying out: focus on diabetes" (11/21/23)
- "Advanced lexicography for diabetes in Japan and China" (11/21/23)
Jim Breen said,
July 26, 2024 @ 6:04 pm
Thanks for this interesting history of the 蛋白質 compound. Yes, as confirmed by the Google n-grams (*) the term is almost always written タンパク質 or たんぱく質. The katakana プロテイン is used about 20% of the time.
(*) https://www.edrdg.org/~jwb/paperdir/JGNGWordFreq.html
Jonathan Smith said,
July 26, 2024 @ 6:34 pm
Fascinating; well I think in Taiwanese one says nn̄g-pe̍h-chit 卵白質 where the first syllable glosses the 'egg' part with the everyday word for bird/fish/etc. egg (presumably cognate to Mamd. luan3)… so "卵" is back :D Speaking of which I doubt this character visually referenced testicles (Mand. dan4 can .ean such however.)
Actually replacement of cognates of luan3 by cognates of dan4 across much of Chinese deserves specialized study… the former is used exclusively in early texts while the latter, whose origins I don't know, emerges only in the early modern period…
Joe Foley said,
July 26, 2024 @ 6:46 pm
The Western etymology is much more boring and abstract: early analytical chemists incorrectly thought all these diverse structures were made of the same molecule, so they named it "prote-" (from the Greek word for "primary") + "-in" (a suffix for molecules). A decade or two ago I met an elderly molecular biologist who still pronounced "protein" in English as three syllables.
Of course, calling these molecules "albumins" or "Eiweisskörper/Eiweissstoff" (egg white substance) is actually quite a bit older, descriptively naming the main natural source from which they were first studied (cf. "electron") rather than a mistaken hypothesis about their molecular form and role.
Rodger C said,
July 27, 2024 @ 10:13 am
What Joe said, except I thought proteins were named after Proteus, the shapeshifter.
Chris Button said,
July 27, 2024 @ 11:08 am
Great post!
So, you've solved one problem but introduced another:
Why 蜑 (as in 蜑家 "Tanka" people) was abbreviated as 蛋 to mean "egg" and then used instead of 卵 "egg" in Chinese. And why Kawakami adopted that approach for this particular Japanese calque.
Misha Schutt said,
July 27, 2024 @ 4:53 pm
I have also heard protein pronounced in three syllables [ˈpɹoʊ.ɾi.ɪn], though unfortunately I did not note the time, date or source.
Victor Mair said,
July 27, 2024 @ 5:22 pm
From Gene Anderson:
Fascinating. Yep, proteins are shapeshifters, hence the Latinate name.
ktschwarz said,
July 28, 2024 @ 2:01 am
Yes, "protein" was coined (originally as protéine in French) from the Greek for "primary". No, it wasn't for Proteus the shapeshifter. You can look these things up, you know. See Merriam-Webster, for example.
Yves Rehbein said,
July 28, 2024 @ 2:22 am
I found tán / dàn 彈 by accident, thinking on 弾 "ball, bullet" as in 弾幕 JP danmaku "bullet hell" shoot-em up games after finding qiānglíndànyǔ 槍林彈雨, when I searched for 雨 + rifle as if "Sturmgewehr" (German assault rifle) to research the Taiwan themed military poster from the other day. It's pretty much a dud because 風雨 is a solid compound with its own connotations. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/風雨
I am slightly confused why dàn in qiānglíndànyǔ looks like an instance of rendaku, though I understand the Japanese Go-On reading was borrowed from Middle Chinese. Dàn 彈 it turns out is in one sense an obsolete "Alternative form of 蛋 (dàn, “egg”)". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/彈#Pronunciation_2
Chris Button said,
July 28, 2024 @ 7:12 am
@ Yves Rehbein
Thanks for that. Wiktionary notes a comment on 彈 in Zhengzhang Shangfang's OC phonology book (2003). I took a look and sure enough on p.512, he says under 蛋:
"作彈分化, 本蜑异构"
So, that could make sense in terms of 蛋 being used for 彈 (reminds me of the "tama" part in Japanese "tamago" for egg). But I still wonder why the choice of the new graphic form 蛋 from 蜑?
ライアン マイケル said,
August 1, 2024 @ 11:12 pm
As was mentioned, "protein" is sometimes プロテイン and sounds like the English word. In this form it almost always crops up in a fitness context (e.g. weight training) where sufficient protein is needed for optimal preformance. In other contexts usually it is タンパク質.
Nathan Hopson said,
August 5, 2024 @ 2:31 am
Thanks for all of your comments and observations!
Yes, I certainly should have mentioned that プロテイン is used (almost?) exclusively in the context of a protein supplement.
There are basically two reasons for this afaik:
1. Generally, katakana has become the language of commerce in Japan; if someone is selling a blue shirt to you, it's probably going to be ブルー not 青い.
2. Japan often has separate terms for words that are homophonous synonyms in European languages. Protein is a good example of this: たんぱく質 is for protein *molecules* and プロテイン is for protein *supplements*. They're not the same thing, just as a glass (グラス), while made out of glass (ガラス) is different from the material itself. So, too, with ゴム and ガム for gum rubber and chewing gum, etc.
Mok Ling 莫齡 said,
August 8, 2024 @ 1:36 am
@ Chris Button
I read this LL entry a few days ago but forgot to make a reply until now. The upper part of 蛋 appears as 疋 (Wiktionary gives the Mandarin reading shū for this character), but the fact that 蜑 is a graphic variant makes me think the now-orthodox form is a 略字 lüèzì/俗字 súzì simplification of 延. Compare it with this 誕 written by the Wang Xizhi in his famous calligraphic work 蘭亭序 ("Preface to the Orchard Pavilion"): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_duijHUIAALQK-?format=jpg&name=360×360