1) illmálmar (opposite of góðmálmar (noble metals). Alkali metals are the most reactive which means they are the opposite of the noble metals.
2) lútarmálmur (lye-metal)
3) votbrennimálmur (wet-burning metals): Alkalimetals react violently with water, especially the heavier ones like Rubidium and Cesium. Although this is a property also observed in heavier alkaline earth elements like barium and radium, compared to the alkalimetals the effect is much less, so we can reserve the term "wet-burning metals" for the alkalimetals. I liked the term because of the funny pseudocontradiction: normally water is seen as a fire-extinguisher, except when it meets with an alkali metal.
4) vítismálmur (from "vítissóti", the corrosive natrium oxide. Víti (hell) is a good reference to the fact that alkali metals react violently upon contact with water and spontaneously burn in air.)
1) Lithium:
1) melmlingur: (diminutive of málmur (metal)). The most obvious property of lithium is its being the lightest of all metallic elements and the small size of its ion Li+, which makes it valuable in dry batteries. Compounds with superlatives like léttastimálmur, alas, sound clumsy. There is hæstiréttur, yes, but these constructions seems to be exceptions to the rule. Generally, superlatives in compounds is seldomely seen in terminology, which I can fully comprehend. When I tried out these compounds in Dutch, they sound clumsy too.
Another advantage of using "laufsteinn" is that "steinn" is a literal translation of the Greek "lithos".
I happened to find a website where the lightness of lithium is compared to a "baby":
Mercury is like the 200 pound bully attacking a 7 pound baby; the small baby doesn't have much of a chance. 200 and 7 are the molecular weights of mercury (the bully) and lithium (the baby) respectively. If you have been diagnosed with bipolar depression, maybe what you need is less mercury, not more lithium pills. http://www.drkaslow.com/html/
2) laufsteinsmálmur, laufspatsmálmur, laufspeti : it actually turned out to be possible to create an extremely pure and still relatively short compound to designate the element lithium. It's a word that consists of three words from Icelandic core vocabulary, like þórþungsteinn for uranium: laufsteinsmálmur, no mistake. Just answer the following question: What metallic element was first found in a mineral named after "leaves": I went through the periodic system, it's lithium, no mistake. Lithium was first discovered in petallite (laufspat) and which still is one of the most important sources of the metal. Not so many minerals are named after leaves http://www.peterharben.com/pwhimname.html , but in order to avoid confusion I thought that "spat" as a second element would specify the mineral more so that connotations can be avoided. First I want to say that I don't have a problem with the germanism "spat", it is well adapted, but if there is a possibility to make an even purer and more elegant Icelandic neologism from the hyperpurely Icelandic core-vocabulary, I choose the latter way. It is possible to hyponymize laufspat to laufsteinn to refer to petallite when creating a word for the metal because the latter part málmur (metal) has a semanticly modulating effect on the first part laufsteinn, as it renders the need to explicitely refer to the spathic nature of stone superfluous. The compound Laufsteinn in laufsteinsmálmur can't refer to anything else than the mineral petallite because no other metallic element is named after a mineral that is in its turn named after leaves, not any, so that's good news. That doesn't mean that 'laufspat" can be used for the mineral. In English, some minerals have 5 different names.
Lithium is an element that is rare in the universe. Because its nucleus desintegrates at temperatures higher than 2.5 million K, most of the primordial lithium is destroyed and like the element 4 and 5 beryllium and boron, they are mostly formed in the cold interstellar space as a result of the collision of cosmic ray particles that collide at relativistic velocities with nuclei of heavier elements.
It's a wonder that an element so unabundant, terrestrially as well as cosmicly can be given a name as relatively short as laufsteinsmálmur.
3) geðmálmur (Lithium salts have a remarkable ability to affect the mind by altering the chemical state of nerve cells in the brain. The carbonate and acetate are prescribed for manic depression and help to limit the extremes of mental state that are a feature of this condition, the sulfate and chloride are more often prescribed as straight anti-depressants and the bromide finds use as a sedative. Lithium could has well have been called "psychium". No other metallic element exhibits this property of affecting the mind (with anything any more complex than its simplest salts) as lithium does.
In the treatment of bipolar disorder, lithium compounds continue to be the standard against which newer medications are measured. Lithium salts may also be helpful for related diagnoses, such as schizoaffective disorder and cyclic major depression. The active principle in these salts is the lithium ion Li+, although detailed mechanisms are debated. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium )
On the website "elementymology and elements multidictionary", a unique website about the names of the chemical elements in almost 100 languages, created by the Dutch map historian Peter van der Krogt, there's a list of alternative names for the chemical elements created by the pupils of the Dorseyville Middle school http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/dms.php . I must say that the list was by no means impressive. Many names look like being created "between the entréé and the main course", as we say in Flemish. Some names were interesting though. In the list, lithium was called "happiness", which shows that people tend to associate the element preferably with the psychopharmaceutical effects of its simple salts, a property in which lithium is superior to all other metallic elements. In the treatment of bipolar disorder for instance, lithium compounds continue, even now, in the 21th century, to be the standard against which newer medications are measured. It is crystal-clear that this particular property sets lithium so far apart from other metallic elements that the endeavor to express this in a alternative name is fully justified. As for the word's construction, my personal favourite is the compound geðmálmur, which has the same "consonantal lattice" as góðmálmur (noble metal), so I assume it will therefore sound a bit less outlandish than sálmálmur or glaðmálmur, which I coined after glaðloft or glaðgas, a synonym of hláturgas (N2O), nitrous oxide).
The erroneousness of frummálmur (primordial metal): Lithium, along with hydrogen and helium, indeed were formed in the Big Bang event and since there has been consensus to exclude hydrogen, despite its metallic properties when solid, from the list of metals. This doesn't mean that "frummálmur" is a correct name. The reason is the following:
During the first gigayear after the Big Bang, most of the primordial lithium was destroyed in the core of the first stars, which were mostly short-lived supergiants that violently ended their lives as supernovae. Now, lithium nuclei desintegrate when the temperature exceeds 2.4 million K, which is too low to survive the inferno of the first giant stars' interior. Most of the lithium we find in nature was formed after all other elements were formed through stellar fusion or neutron absorption in supernova events. The bulk of the present-day lithium was formed in cold interstellar space by a process called "spallation". When particles in cosmic rays, travelling thorugh space at relativistic velocities come into collision with nuclei of heavier elements, a lithium nucleus is occasionly chopped off. So if you look at a bottle containing pure lithium metal, submerged in oil, you may be sure that only a very tiny fraction of it is primordial, while the rest is just the opposite. This makes a term like frummálmur as a designation for lithium inappropriate.
2) sodium
1) sæmálmur (a translation of the Maori name for the element: konutae (konu-prefix denoting a metal) + tae (sea). http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/language.php?language=mi This makes sense as sodium is the most abundant element in sea-water where it is bound to chlorine as salt (NaCl), which explains the older name for hydrochloric acid: "marine acid" (sæsýra). In the same way, sodium can be designated as "the marine metal". Some might consider the compound "saltmálmur", but this one is actually less correct than the loan-translation from Maori, despite the fact that "salt" in its original, narrowest sense, designates NaCl. In chemical terminology "salt" has has develloped into a term denoting a specific kind of compounds, which makes a term like "sea-metal" much more appropriate a designation than "salt-metal".
3) sótamálmur (from vítissóti, sóti (NaOH, sodium hydroxide (sæmálmsvetnildi)) is also possible, but it contains the loa-word "sóti", so after all it is better to stick with the shorter and purer sæmálmur
3) potassium
1) öskumálmur: Kalium and "kali" in "alkali" mean "ash" in Arabic, not pot-ash, just ash, so the addition of "pottur" isn't necessary. Another example that shows it is possible to omit "pottur" is a German alternative term for "potash": aschensalz (ash-salt). Therefore I believe that "öskumálmur" would be transparent enough a designation for kalium for an Icelandic chemist.
2) eski (from "aska", like vetni (hydrogen) from vatn (water), ildi (oxygen) from eldur (fire))
3) andeir (anti copper: The alkali metals are chemically the opposite of the noble metals. Alkali metals make up group 1A, while copper silver and gold make up group 1B. Potassium lies on the same period as "copper (Cu)": andeir, rubidium (Rb) lies on the same period as silver (andsilfur) and cesium (Cs), the most unnoble metal (yes, paradoxically enough more electropositive and reactive than its heavier and illusive brother Francium (Fr) (see under Cesium)) we can call "andgull".
Rubidium:
1) andsilfur, lútarsilfur ("Lútareir" is an incappropriate designation for potassium, because it doesn't explicitely get rid of the idea of a "red metal, while "andeir" denotes a metal that doesn't have to have the same colour as copper.)
2) rófroðamálmur (Four elements were named after the colour of their emission spectrum: Cesium (blue), thallium (green), indium (indigo), and rubidium (deep red).
http://www.ehow.com/info_12055449_elements-periodic-table-named-colors-emit-burned.html
We can make a construction with róf- (from litróf, occuring uncompounded with -litur (colour) in rófsjá (spectroscope), rófgreining (spectroscôpic analysis). The compound rófróði (spectral red) can be used to isolate rubidium, the only element named after a "red colour in its emission spectrum is rubidium: rófroðamálmur, not a short word, but not exaggeratedly long either.
Compounds:
Rubidium perchlorate: hábleikiloftssúr rófroðamálmur (or hágallreykssúrt lútarsilfur)
Rubidium iodide: rófróðamálmsþengi (þengi = iodine, from þang, sea-weed)
Rubidium nitrate: saltpéturssúr rófroðumálmur
Rubidium telluride: kóngamálmungi bundinn rofróðumálmur (kóngamálmungur, because tellurium is the only non-metallic element, in this case a metalloid (málmungur) that forms compounds with "gold" the king of metals, in nature (compare to the fact that aqua regia (kóngavatn), was so-called because it dissolved "gold".
http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Málmungur
Cesium:
1) andgull (the most unnoble (ironically golden-coloured) metal on the same period as gold, but in group 1A instead of 1B). Gold and cesium don't just have their colours and oxidation states in common but both are monoisotopic elements too).
2) þeygull (the thawing gold, having a melting point of 27°C) see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDMUb5mQsjo
3) hvellgull (the explosive golden-coloured metal)
Francium:
stundarmálmur (The element's most stable isotope has a half-life of no more than 22 minutes, that means that one eighth part of it is still there after an hour, so the compound stundarmálmur, with the first part "stund", interpreted in an additional sense of "klukkustund" (hour), is applicable in this case.)
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