Chinese names for chemical elements

[pne]

I found the Wikipedia article "Periodic table (Chinese)" interesting, since it collects all the Chinese names for chemical elements (in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese, where names occasionally differ, especially in man-made elements after uranium).

I find it interesting that Chinese has coined single-morpheme, single-character names for each new element.

It makes me wonder, though, whether this causes even more problematic homophony and/or how people learn the pronunciation of such extra characters—are they pronounced exactly the same as the phonetic component, for example?

Comments

[bride.livejournal.com]

I think it works the same way as in any other language, someone makes it up, writes it in a text book or in an appendix of a reputable dictionary and everyone else follows. Some of the phonetic parts don't have pronunciations because they don't exist as characters on their own, but I think the majority of them are pronounced the same as the phonetic.

I don't think the Traditional character for Berkelium (atomic number 97) is right though. I was pretty sure it was the "gold" radical on the left with the same phonetic as 陪 (péi; "to accompany") and was pronounced péi. I can't find that phonetic on its own so I don't know how it's pronounced.

But that character is too uncommon for NJStar and I can't input it...