If you've looked over the list of elements posted a little earlier, you may have noticed something strange about the element symbols. Some of them make perfect sense: N for nitrogen, U for uranium, even He for helium. Others are less obvious, but reasonable. You might expect zinc to be Z or Zi, instead of Zn, but at least those two letters are in the name. But who ever came up with Na for sodium, Sn for tin, Au for gold, and W for tungsten??
Many of these elements were discovered hundreds of years ago, when educated people communicated in Latin instead of English, French, German, or whatever language they spoke at home. Many symbols come from the Latin name for the element: natrium for sodium, stannum for tin, and aurum for gold. Tungsten's symbol is W because its German name is wolfram.
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