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I was in Bikku Camera earlier today, and I wanted to buy a small kitchen scale
for measuring small amounts of food.

I looked up the word "scale" in the dictionary, and it said
[`衡器{こうき}`](http://www.jisho.org/words?jap=&eng=scale&dict=edict). So I found
a shop assistant and asked her for a `食{た}べ物{もの}を量{はか}る用{よう}の衡器{こうき}`. _(I'm
not totally confident about my grammar there, so correct me if I'm off.
However, I don't think it changes the main point of this question.)_

She looked at me quizzically, so I asked again, and this time I said
`食{た}べ物{もの}を量{はか}る用{よう}のスケール`. This time she understood perfectly, and took me
directly to where the scales were.

I walked away from that interaction a little baffled. I can see how some words
are more commonly understood in katakana
[`外来語{がいらいご}`](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gairaigo). For example, how
`写真機{しゃしんき}` got replaced by `カメラ`, being that it was a concept imported from
the west and the English word came with it.

But surely Japan had scales since forever, and there would be a native word.
Is it not `衡器{こうき}`? I didn't find any viable alternatives in the dictionary.

In any case, I'm always a little confused when I have to resort to katakana
English to be understood. I feel like I'm cheating somehow. And I'm always
surprised when it works.

How, and why, is it that the shop assistant understood `スケール` better than
`衡器{こうき}`?
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word-choice loanwords
What went wrong when I asked for a 衡器{こうき}?
As far as I know, 衡器{こうき} is equivalent in meaning to 天秤{てんびん} and refers to a
_balance scale_ rather than an _electronic scale._ This would intuitively make
sense because the balance scale is the older concept and is expressed in
kanji, whereas the electronic scale is the newer concept and is expressed in
katakana.
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I have never **heard** of the word `衡器`, although if **written** in kanji, I
can imagine what it is. It is a rare word if it ever exist. Maybe you are
using some strange/old/too formal dictionary. The most normal word for this
situation is `はかり`, whose kanji writings is usually `秤`, `量り`, or `計り`. `スケール`
is not as usual, but at least it is much more recognizable than `衡器`.

One general suggestion to you is that, occasionally, but not always, a word
made of a few kanjis and is pronounced solely by their on-yomi is somewhat
artificially created on the spot, and is used in writing, but not in spoken
language. When kanjis are read in on-yomi, there are often so many homonyms,
and is hard to identify which kanji is meant. So they are not practical for
spoken language.
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It would require serious philological investigation to figure out the exact
situation w/r/t to 衡器, スケール and はかり, but there are a few suggestive pieces of
data easily available.

日本国語大辞典 has one example sentence for 衡器. It is from 1909, from a weights-and-
measures law ([度量]{どりょう}衡法{こうほう}施行令{しこうれい}):

> 度量衡器の製作の免許を受けたる者は ...
> 度器{どき}、量器{りょうき}又{また}は衡器の[修覆]{しゅうふく}[及]{および}販売の[業]{ぎょう}を営{いとな}むことを[得]{う}

"An individual who has received a license to create measuring devices (度量衡器)
[...] is permitted to run a business making and selling length-measuring
devices (度器), volume-measuring devices (量器) and weight-measuring devices
(衡器)."

I'm not a legal pro so this may not be a good translation from that
standpoint, but what is of interest to us here is that 衡器 is used in
opposition to 度器 and 量器, which are of the same form except for the first
character. As far as I can tell, a 度器 is basically a ruler and a 量器 is
basically a cup (as in "2 cups of flour"), although of course scaling up to
industrial sizes and adjusting for cultural norms (the "cup" might be square).
And note that all three are joined together at the start in the word (or is it
a phrase?) 度量衡器.

Aozora Bunko has [two](http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000810/card49947.html)
[hits](http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000160/card3355.html) for 衡器, both from
the first half of the 20th century, and both giving it the furigana はかり.

So here is my theory. Everything beyond this is speculation.

The word はかり is a native Japanese word, obviously related to the verb はかる, to
measure. This word suffices for the concept of "scale" which, as you note,
have been known in Japan for a long time.

However, when you are writing in kanbun (Chinese, basically, although often
"with Japanese characteristics") or heavily kanbun-influenced Japanese --
which you are, if you are writing official documents like the Meiji laws --
you can't use the word はかり because it is Japanese. You could just assign the
word はかり to a single kanji like 衡, and this may have been done in some cases.
But there is no guarantee that people will know to read it はかり; they may
confuse it with one of 衡's many other meanings.

So you use 衡器 instead: "device for 衡ing." This is much less ambiguous. (I
don't know whether the word 衡器 was invented in China or Japan, but either way,
the principles are the same.) You now have a word 衡器 that means the same thing
as はかり, and many people will actually pronounce it はかり. But you can also force
a Chinese pronunciation from the on-yomi of the individual kanji, and that
would be こうき. This would make it one of those words "artificially created on
the spot" as sawa explains.

And so the word こうき is introduced into Japanese, but it never really gets
beyond the formal contexts it was created for. (It probably doesn't help that
こう is one of the most common on-yomi in the language; there must be dozens of
other こうきs out there.) はかり remains the "default" word for the concept of a
scale. Even when popular writers use the spelling 衡器, they still indicate the
pronunciation はかり. As the formal contexts where こうき is required grow rarer and
rarer, the word fades into further obscurity, although it does live on in
dictionaries.

(The fact that the word スケール is borrowed from English at some later point is a
side issue. It might have come along for the ride with some new technology --
a new _type_ of scale, somehow distinguishable from the old はかり mechanism.
Maybe the electronic scale, as Chris suggests. The point is that スケール does
become fairly common -- enough for a shop assistant to recognize it when you
used it -- although according to sawa it never displaces はかり.)
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What about "she had no idea whether you meant 光輝, 好機, 後期, 校旗, 綱紀, 香気, 光機, 公器,
口器, 口気, 好奇, 好期, 好気, 工期, 広軌, 後記, 校紀, 校規, 洪基, 皇紀, 紅旗, 興起, 衡器, 高貴 or 鴻基"?

Also, I suggest you use "ため" instead of "よう" (without kanji, anyway). よう is
quite different (and unrelated to this question).
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