I give below my views and comments on this subject. I bring to the readers
of the Asian-Pacific Chemical Education Network (ACEN), my experience in
teaching Chemistry in Tamil in a Sri Lankan University during 1975-1985.
I left Sri Lanka, in 1986, in frustration as I did not wish to continue
to contribute to the teaching of Chemistry in a language in which very little
reference material was available. Besides, new words in Tamil had to be
coined overnight, and in haste, to teach new concepts in a fast developing
international subject such as Chemistry. I now teach Chemistry in English
at the University of the South Pacific to students whose mother tongue is
not English.
My comments are about the use of Tamil to teach chemistry in Sri Lanka:
The common practice now is to use transliteration for the names of elements
whenever they occur in the name of a compound; for example the name "sulphur"
when it occurs in "sulphur dioxide" is transliterated. I commend
this practice. Unfortunately, this practice is not followed uniformly and
universally. Some users translate "sulphur" in "sulphur dioxide"
but transliterate the inflected forms such as "sulphurous", "sulphuric",
"sulphite" etc.
When the name of a common element (for example "copper") occurs
by itself in the text it is sometimes translated and sometimes transliterated.
This is confusing; there should be consistency. I think it is best to transliterate.
The names of all elements for which there is no traditional name in the
local language are transliterated -- for example ozone and radium.
Technical terms are usually translated -- for example atom, molecule, excited
state, vapourization.
However, there are terms such as "conformation" and "conformational
analysis" for which translations are not found in the official glossaries.
Such words are translated variously; this is confusing; users should agree
on one single translation. Otherwise it is better to use transliteration.
Transliteration of technical words is clumsy; but this is better than using
numerous non-standard translations.
Units -- for example kg., cm., mole -- are transliterated.
Roman scripts are used for chemical symbols even when Chemistry is taught
in Tamil.