M.P. Semenenko Institute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy and Ore Formation of NAS of Ukraine

ACADEMICIAN EVHEN LAZARENKO — CREATOR OF THE LANGUAGE OF MINERALOGISTS

"Mineralogical nomenclature is the language of mineralogists…"
Yevhen Lazarenko

The report “Academician Yevgeny Lazarenko – Creator of the Language of Minerals” was delivered at the Solemn Meeting of the Academic Council of the M.P. Semenenko Institute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy and Ore Formation of the NAS of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Mineralogical Society on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR Yevgeny Lazarenko by the President of the Ukrainian Mineralogical Society, Doctor of Geological Sciences, Hanna Kulchytska. During the meeting, a presentation of the reference book “Ukrainian Nomenclature of Minerals” (Kyiv: Akademperiodika, 2022) was held. Authors - Hanna Kulchytska, Daria Chernysh, Larisa Setaya.

The event took place on December 8, 2022 in the small conference hall of the Institute of Geophysics and Geophysics of the NAS of Ukraine.

The President of the Ukrainian Mineralogical Society (UMT), Doctor of Geological Sciences Hanna Kulchytska, in her report “Academician Yevhen Lazarenko – Creator of the Language of Minerals,” noted that a common language is an attribute of every organized community. Without knowledge of the language, a person actually becomes mute. Each field of science or technology has its own language, often incomprehensible to outsiders. In general, each of them consists of generally understood words and a certain proportion of professional ones. In geological sciences, the largest number of professional words (terms) is in mineralogy. The modern nomenclature of minerals has tens of thousands of terms. The number of approved species alone is approaching 6 thousand (5,863 as of November 2022), and there are also many synonyms, names of discredited species, and terms related to varieties of minerals.

President of the Ukrainian Mineralogical Society, Doctor of Geological Sciences Hanna Kulchytska, during the report "Academician Yevhen Lazarenko - the creator of the language of minerals."

When the number of minerals did not exceed a hundred, the existence of different names for the same minerals in each country did not create a problem. The first book with a list of mineral names in English (like an explanatory dictionary) was published in 1837. It was “A System of Mineralogy” by James Dana (Dana J.D). In the Russian Empire, an attempt to systematize mineralogical knowledge was made by Volodymyr Vernadsky in his unfinished work “Experience of Descriptive Mineralogy” (1908–1922). In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, thanks to Ivan Verkhratsky, in 1909 the Ukrainian-German dictionary of mineralogy “Vyraznya mineralogicalha” was published. The number of minerals known at that time was too small for the mineralogical nomenclature to influence the language of mineralogists.

By the middle of the 20th century. the number of mineral names exceeded a thousand. The globalization of science and the rapid growth in the number of discoveries of new minerals forced mineralogists around the world to agree, to systematize the nomenclature of minerals and to create dictionaries of normative mineralogical language. The International Mineralogical Association with the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclatures and Classifications under it was established in 1959 and set itself the task of “cleaning” the language of mineralogists by systematizing the nomenclature of minerals. The first explanatory dictionary in the former Soviet Union was the “Mineralogical Dictionary” by E. Lazarenko and O. Vinar, published in 1975 with the active assistance of the editors of the publishing house “Scientific Thought”. It collected 14 thousand terms related to the names of minerals, recorded in three languages ​​- Ukrainian, Russian and English, explanations of terms and the main characteristics of mineral species. Nothing similar, even close, was created later in the Soviet Union. Two editions of the "Mineralogical Dictionary" by G. Shtrumel and Z. Kh. Zimmer (1987) and the "Dictionary of Mineral Species" by M. Fleischer (1990) were translated from German and English, respectively. The "Mineralogical Dictionary" by V. Krivovichev (2008) appeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR Yevgeny Kostyantynovich Lazarenko in his office (Institute of Geological Sciences, 1970) and "Mineralogical Dictionary". Authors - Ye. Lazarenko, O. Vinar (1975)

The richness of national languages ​​is based on the presence of synonyms. There are also many of them in the language of mineralogists. In the “Mineralogical Dictionary” synonyms of mineral names are marked with the words “the same as…”, giving priority to approved names. Many terms in the aforementioned dictionary contain the mark “superfluous name…”, which can be equated with obsolete synonyms. There are a lot of terms marked “incorrect name…”. They can be considered analogues of dialect words in the national language.

Yevhen Lazarenko believed that mineralogical nomenclature, like a national language, is a set of historical trivial words by which we perceive a mineral with certain physical and chemical properties. We know that quartz will be hard, gypsum will be soft, ruby ​​will be red, and sapphire will be blue, realgar contains the chemical element arsenic, and cinnabar will contain mercury. Another Ukrainian academician, Oleksandr Povarennykh, who also dealt with the nomenclature of minerals, on the contrary, promoted the idea that the chemical and structural properties of a mineral should be reflected in its name. The idea was good, but Oleksandr Povarennykh proposed to rename all the names of minerals, no matter how long they have existed. In fact, to create a new language of mineralogists. Modern international mineralogical organizations rejected such a proposal. They adhere to the position of preserving historical trivial names, but support the idea of ​​O. Povarennyh in the case of the formation of names for new mineral species that are chemical or structural analogues of previously known ones.

Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR Yevgeny Lazarenko tells the employee of the Institute of Geological Sciences N.N. Tsikhotskaya the story of the giant morion crystal from the Volyn deposit (1970-1971)

Academician Yevhen Lazarenko with employees of the Institute of Geochemistry and Physics of Minerals (IGPM, now the Institute of Geochemistry and Physics of Minerals of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) during expeditionary work in the territory of Nagolny Kryaz (Luhansk region, 1974).
From left to right: L. Kalmazan, Academician E. Lazarenko, O. Ivantyshyna, I. Harusevych.

The last photo during his lifetime with the employees of the Department of Regional and Genetic Mineralogy of the Institute of Mineralogy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (now the Institute of Mineralogy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). Academician Yevgeny Lazarenko in the center, 13.11.1978.
From left to right: L. Nikolaeva, Yu. Galaburda, G. Demydenko, O. Marushkin, T. Lupashko, L. Gorbacheva, V. Pavlyshyn, G. Turkevich, D. Voznyak, N. Buchynska, A. Ivanova.

Yevgeny Lazarenko and Oleksandr Povarennykh worked on improving the classification of minerals. Even before the publication of the Mineralogical Dictionary, Yevgeny Lazarenko proposed to distinguish two taxa lower than a mineral species: variety and distinction. Varieties became the extreme members of an isomorphic series, and distinction was a set of individuals that differed from other individuals of the same species in physical, chemical, or morphological features. This is the interpretation of mineral names that we see in the Mineralogical Dictionary. Considerable attention was paid to the spelling of the names of chemical distinctions (varieties) of minerals. According to Yevgeny Lazarenko, they should be transmitted in two words and not in the same way as mineral names. Therefore, the dictionary contains many remarks such as: aluminochromite is the same as aluminous chromite; magnomagnetite is the same as magnesian magnetite; magnomagnetite is the same as magnesian magnetite, etc. This is consistent with the rule introduced by international mineralogical commissions: names of mineral species, unlike names of chemical varieties, are written in one word. In domestic literature, even after the publication of the rule, two-word names were still used for a long time. When you now come across two-word names of minerals in publications from 1970 to 2010, it is difficult to determine whether we are dealing with a variety or a variety.

The author of the report, Hanna Kulchytska, noted that while creating the reference book "Mineralogical Encyclopedia of Ukraine", she encountered a variety of mineral names common in the national geological literature. To synonyms and obsolete names of minerals, discredited species, one-word terms for chemical declensions and two-word terms for mineral species, Ukrainian-language terms were added, formed either from Russian or English, ignoring the language of the country of discovery, as required by the rules for approving mineral species and their names. A special problem was created by English names with the initial letter "H". Despite the fact that in the "Mineralogical Dictionary" they are written with the initial "Г", in accordance with the rules of transcription in Ukrainian from English, leading scientific journals in the Ukrainian SSR, as well as in independent Ukraine, borrowed the names of these minerals from the Russian language with the initial letter "Х", which led to the appearance of different names for the same mineral. Many errors were caused by terms of Chinese origin, transcribed according to the rules from English, and not from Chinese. Changes to Ukrainian spelling also contributed. An urgent problem arose to organize the Ukrainian nomenclature of minerals.

The task of streamlining the mineralogical nomenclature was faced by the Public Organization "Ukrainian Mineralogical Society" (UMT), since these issues are dealt with by public organizations around the world. At the UMT congress in 2017, a Terminology Commission was organized, which in 2019 adopted the following recommendations on the spelling of Ukrainian mineral names:

1. preserve the historical names of minerals, that is, preserve the spelling of names recorded in the "Mineralogical Dictionary";

2. for the remaining minerals discovered before 1991, borrow their names from the Russian language, adapting them to the then current Ukrainian spelling;

3. for minerals approved during the period of Independence, form Ukrainian names by transcribing from the original language and writing in accordance with the Ukrainian Spelling Code of 2019;

4. regulate the use of hyphens and connecting letters in complex mineral names.

In accordance with the resolution of the Terminological Commission, a “Dictionary of Ukrainian Names of Mineral Species” was prepared, published in the “Notes of the Ukrainian Mineralogical Society” (vol. 16, 2019), which recorded the main principles of forming Cyrillic terms from the Latin alphabet. The terms in the dictionary are sorted based on the Latin alphabet.

In 2022, taking into account errors, the Publishing House of Academperiodics of the NAS of Ukraine published the reference publication "Ukrainian Nomenclature of Minerals". The authors are employees of the Institute of Mineralogy of the NAS of Ukraine, the President of the UMT, Doctor of Geological Sciences, Hanna Kulchytska, and members of the Kyiv Branch of the UMT, Candidate of Geological Sciences, Dariya Chernysh and Larysa Setaya.

The directory contains information about 7 thousand minerals, including 5.78 thousand approved by 2021: the name of the mineral in three languages, the most important data on the chemical composition and structure, the status of the mineral or its name, the year of approval, the origin of the name. For each approved species, crystallochemical formulas, data on the crystal syngony, affiliation to the largest groups, the presence of polymorphic modifications, dates of discovery, redefinition and renaming, etymology of the name, country of discovery are provided. For approved species, an abbreviation of the name is provided, recommended for use in publications.

The main goal of the publication is to create a normative base of mineral names in Ukrainian, adapted to the recommendations of the International Mineralogical Association.

Bibliographic description of the reference book:

H. Kulchetska, D. Chernysh, L. Setaya; Ukrainian nomenclature of minerals. — /Institute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy and Ore Formation named after M.P. Semenenko of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; Ukrainian Mineralogical Society/. — Kyiv. Akademperiodika, 2022. — 547 (44,53). — 110. — ISBN 978-966-360-463-3.

Finally, let us quote the words of Academician Yevhen Lazarenko once again:

"The language of mineralogists can be a good means of communication only if it is widely distributed and the same meaning of the same words."

The electronic version of the guide is available at the following link:

Handbook "Ukrainian Nomenclature of Minerals", 2022.

During the Solemn Meeting of the Academic Council of the Institute, his contemporaries and students – Professor, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Volodymyr Pavlyshyn and Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Dmytro Voznyak – shared their memories of Academician Yevhen Kostyantynovich Lazarenko.

Small conference hall of the Institute. Solemn meeting of the Academic Council. Professor, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Volodymyr Pavlyshyn shares his memories of Academician Yevhen Lazarenko

Small conference hall of the Institute. Solemn meeting of the Academic Council. Dmytro Voznyak, a student of Yevhen Lazarenko, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, shares his memories of the academician

Solemn meeting of the Academic Council.
From left to right: President of the Ukrainian Mineralogical Society Doctor of Geological Sciences G. Kulchytska, Senior Researcher L. Setaya, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Director of the Institute of Geological and Mineral Resources of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine O. Ponomarenko, Postgraduate Student O. Kovtun, Deputy Director for Scientific and Organizational Work K. Vovk, Leading Researcher O. Vyshnevsky, Scientific Secretary of the Academic Council I. Samborska

Small conference hall of the Institute. Participants of the Solemn Meeting of the Academic Council are researchers of the Institute of Microbiology and Molecular Biology of the NAS of Ukraine.

According to the information of the President of the Ukrainian Mineralogical Society, Doctor of Geological Sciences G. Kulchytska and the Scientific Secretary of the Academic Council, Candidate of Geological Sciences I. Samborska

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