Neologisms with Birth-Certificates. Case of Mineralogical Nomenclature

Abstract

The article focuses on the recently added items in mineralogical nomenclature, which constitutes an important part of the terminology of this field. Analysis of a sample of the mineral names adopted by the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association in 2022–2023 showed that (a) mineralogical nomenclature represents a hybrid set of terms formed by prefixation, suffixation, chemical and physical descriptive names, and names based on onomastic metonymies, (b) despite objections formulated by terminologists and mineralogists, this nomenclature remains predominantly based on proper names of persons and places, (c) other types of names, as names referring to chemical and structural properties of minerals, are relatively rare (even if many names formed from proper names contain affixes referring to the chemical and structural properties of minerals), and (d) metaphors are relatively rarely used to form new names of minerals, although they are very frequent in trivial names of minerals.