4. Beryllium - Elementymology & Elements Multidict

Elementymology & Elements Multidict

This site comprises 120 pages of text and photos, one for each element, and several pages for access. – For captions or explanatory texts move your mouse over illustrations, links etc.

4
Beryllium
Beryllium – Beryllium – Béryllium – Berílio – ベリリウム – Бериллий – 鈹
Be
Multilingual dictionary

Indo-European
Beryllium Latin

— Germanic
Berillium Afrikaans
Beryllium Danish
Beryllium German
Beryllium English
Beryllium Faroese
Beryllium Frisian (West)
Beryllín Icelandic
Beryllium Luxembourgish
Beryllium Dutch
Beryllium Norwegian
Beryllium Swedish

— Italic
Berilio Aragonese
Beriliumu Aromanian
Beriliu Asturian
Berilli Catalan
Berílio Spanish
Béryllium French
Berili Friulian
Berilio Galician
Berillio Italian
Beríli Lombard
Berilli Occitan
Berílio Portuguese
Beriliu Romanian - Moldovan

— Slavic
Берилий [Berilij] Bulgarian
Berilij[um] Bosnian
Берылій [berylij] Belarusian
Beryllium Czech
Berilij Croatian
Beril Kashubian
Берилиум [Berilium] Macedonian
Beryl Polish
Бериллий [Berillij] Russian
Berýllium Slovak
Berilij Slovenian
Берилијум [Berilijum] Serbian
Берилій [berylij] Ukrainian

— Baltic
Berilis Lithuanian
Berilijs Latvian
Berėlis Samogitian

— Celtic
Beriliom Breton
Berilliwm Welsh
Beirilliam Gaelic (Irish)
Beirilliam Gaelic (Scottish)
Beryllium Gaelic (Manx)
Berylyum Cornish

— Other Indo-European
Βηρυλλιο [viryllio] Greek
Բերիլիում [berilium] Armenian
Berilium[i] Albanian

— Indo-Iranian/Iranian
Berîlyûm Kurdish
Бериллий [berillij] Ossetian
Бериллий [Berilli'] Tajik

— Indo-Iranian/Indo-Aryan
বেরিলিয়াম [beriliẏāma] Bengali
بریلیوم [brylywm] Persian
બૅરીલીયમનો [berīlīyamano] Gujarati
बेरिलियम [beriliyama] Hindi

Finno-Ugric
Berüllium Estonian
Beryllium Finnish
Berillium Hungarian
Бериллий [Berillij] Komi
Бериллий [Berillij] Mari
Берили [berili] Moksha
Berüllium Võro

Altaic
Berillium Azerbaijani
Берилли [Berilli] Chuvash
Бериллий [berillij] Kazakh
Бериллий [Berillij] Kyrgyz
Берилли [berilli] Mongolian
Berilyum Turkish
بېرىللىي [berilliy] Uyghur
Berilliy Uzbek

Other (Europe)
Berilioa Basque
ბერილიუმი [beriliumi] Georgian

Afro-Asiatic
بيريليوم [bīrīliyūm] Arabic
בריליום [berilium] Hebrew
Beriljum, ²Berillju Maltese

Sino-Tibetan
Phì (鈹) Hakka
ベリリウム [beririumu] Japanese
베릴륨 [berillyum] Korean
เบริลเลียม [bēlrilliam/bēnrilliam] Thai
Berili Vietnamese
[pi1 / pei1] Chinese

Malayo-Polynesian
Berilio Cebuano
Berilium Indonesian
Konuuku Māori
Berilium Malay

Other Asiatic
ബെറിലിയം [beṟiliyam] Malayalam
பெரிலியம் [periliyam] Tamil

Africa
Belilu Lingala
Beriliamo Sesotho
Berili Swahili

North-America
Iztactlāltepoztli Nahuatl

South-America
Berilyu Quechua

Creole
Berilimi Sranan Tongo

Artificial
Berilio Esperanto

New names
Berilion Atomic Elements
Emerald Dorseyville
memory peg

Gray metal which can be lustrous if polished
melting point 1278.5 °C; 2333 °F
boiling point 2970 °C; 5378 °F
density 1.85 g/cc; 115.37 pounds/cubic foot
1798 Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin, France (oxide)
1828 Friedrich Wöhler and Antoine Bussy (metal)
βηρυλλος (bèryllos) = beryl (Greek)
named by Martin Heinrich Klaproth

History & Etymology

Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin At the end of the eighteenth century several chemists were interested in the chemical composition of emerald and beryl, two very similar gems.

Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743-1817) analyzed a Peruvian emerald generously donated by Prince Dimitri Gallitzin. Johann Jacob Bindheim (1750-1825) and others analyzed beryl. René-Just Haüy (1743-1822) was struck particularly by the similar crystal geometry between the two gems. In 1798 Haüy requested Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin (1763-1829) to compare emerald and beryl. His analysis found that both gems were identical except for a little Chromium in emerald. He read his paper for the French Academy on 26 pluviose an VI (= 15 February 1798). Following the suggestion of the editors of the Annales de Chimie et de Physique he called the new earth Glucina, since its salts had a sweet taste (note). This name is derived from the Greek word γλυκυς [glykys] = sweet.
silex
(silica)
argil
(alumina)
iron
oxide
limeglucina
Emerald (Klaproth)66.25%31.25%0.50%--
Beryl (Bindheim)64%27%2%8%-
Emerald=Beryl (Vauquelin)64.6%14%-2.56%13%
[after Trapp]

In 1808, Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) did experiments for the decomposition of alumine, silex, zircone, and glucine. He failed to isolate the metals in these, as he reported in his paper for the Royal Society of London on 30 June 1808, but he suggested names for the metals (note):


Cf. Silicium, Aluminium, and Zirconium

With Glucium Davy altered simply the name of the earth into that of a metal. However, noting that Yttria salts are also sweet, Klaproth preferred to call the new earth beryllia, after Βηρυλλος [bèryllos], Greek for beryl. The earth would be reducible to the element Beryllium. Friedrich Wöhler (1800-1882) (note) and Antoine-Alexandre-Brutus Bussy (1794-1882) (note) isolated independently of each others the first elemental Beryllium in 1828.

The alternative name glucinium (symbol: Gl) is derived from glucina, see above. In 1949 IUPAC’s Commission on Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry selected the name beryllium based on consideration of prevailing usage (note).


   

Agusterde

The German chemist Johann Bartholomäus Trommsdorff (1770-1837) discovered in 1800 in beryl from Saxony a new earth, calling it Agusterde ("Agust Earth"). He derived this name from the Greek άγευστος, without taste (note). In a few years, 1804, was announced that Agusterde was "nothing else as phosphorsaure Kalkerde Chaux phosphatée (note)

Chemistianity 1873
MTYAN
BERYLLIUM, metal of the Beryl
And Emerald gems, is a white metal,
And light much like Magnesium. It is oft named
Glucinum from the sweetish taste of its Salts.
It may be forged and roll'd into sheets, like Gold.
J. Carrington Sellars, Chemistianity, 1873, p. 133
Further reading
  • Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 535-540.
  • Beryl, by Gregory D. Holland. Trinity Mineral Co. (on-line)

Sources Index of Persons Index of Alleged Elements