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Why latin words are used for scientific terms?
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Germanic inventions ?
The germanics , vandals, were pagan barbarians living for 1000 years, vandalising (from vandal - a germanic legacy !!! ) the Christian and civilized roman empire...
<<<In computer science and programming, we can be thankful that most/all the technical words we use (in the US at least) are based on English. Maybe most programmers don't know Latin and Greek (I don't). >>
You don't have to know Latin or greek, you just have to learn those terms, like other people who don't speak English, they have to learn the terms in English. There are afew countries that use the technical terms in their language such as France and a little in Germany and perhaps theer are more. France is the worst, they alsmost change the whole technical language to ther own. Nothing sound like in English. An exemple that amkes me laught: "clickez" for "click". (clickez is the polite form -2nd plural person-of the verb "click" which doesn't exist in French language
« Guest » : « For example, donate is a Latin-based verb meaning ‘to give’ »
Plus précisément, An <donate> & <donation> sont issus du moyen français, pas du latin. -------------------------------- Cro Magnon : « I think the world will still use English for computers and aviation, even if the Chinese (or someone else) become the next superpower. » Je nen suis pas si sûr pour l'aviation : la télécommunication aérienne orale subit de nombreux avatars à cause de la phonologie de l'anglais — notamment entre les anglophones maternels et les autres. Une fois que les États-Unis seront dépassés par la Chine (en général) et par l'Europe (pour l'aéronautique), il y a fort à parier que l'anglais sera très rapidement remplacé par une langue disposant d'une phonologie plus *CARDINALE* et d'un système de *MARQUAGE* développé et efficace pour différencier les catégories grammaticales autrement que par la simple position des mots. « Miscommunication between pilots and air traffic control » Résumé : « Language confusion is a frequent cause of pilot error. Although English was made the common language of world aviation in 1951, miscommunication and crashes in which communication was a contributing factor are common. Standard phrases used by air traffic controllers in the United States contain numerous confusing elements. These include ambiguities, misnomers and illogicalities. Phrases are not derivations of a master plan as they should be. The inability of English to express specific instructions to pilots without confusion disqualifies it as a language for permanent use by aviation. »
My dictionary and Webster's says donate is a back-formation of donation, which derives from Latin. "Etymology: Middle English donatyowne, from Latin donation"
And this source indicates Old French which is more Latin-like than anything: http://www.bartleby.com/61/62/D0336200.html
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=donation&searchmode=none
Moyen français : 1er quart du XVe siècle.
<<I need a reason why is it Latin??!!!>>
I think the heavy use of greek and latin is a matter of trying to impress the laymen with their knowledge and education. Which of the following jargons sounds more refined arcane, educated, and esoteric? Medicine: acrocyanosis, erythromelalgia, lymphocytopenia, agranulocytosis, sarcosinemia, spondyloepyphiseal displasia, ... Programming: latch, hook, queue, thread, mutex, class, rwlock, condvar, task, signal, process, region, callee, backchain, fork(), exec(), malloc()ed, throw, catch, spawn()ee, ESTAE, TCP/IP, ...
The Periodic Table is a curious case because from what I know, English is one of the few languages that uses the Latin words. Spanish(and I think Italian)=Uranio, Polonio, Plutonio; English=Uranium, Polonium, Plutonium.
Probably this is because it is easy to "Italianise" or "Hispanise" words, but to make words sound English is impossible because the language allows many, many different patterns. Something I noticed in the geographical terms is that both in English and Spanish they como from Latin, but the words are different. (Spanish;English) Longitud;Longitude, Istmo;Isthmus, Península;Peninsula, Ecuador;Equator. In medicine, Latin is used more in English than in Spanish, maybe they all come from the same word but in Spanish we treat it as Spanish. For example, doctors write in prescriptions in Latin how many times a day it has to be taken while in Spanish I've only seen instructions in regular Spanish.
I was told recently that physicians used to write patient information in Latin (in at least one Slavic country), so the patient would not be able to read medical histories. I wonder if this is true.
About Latin and physicians who practice in the USA: I think you mean "t. i. d." or "b. i. d.", don't you? These are common abbreviations of the Latin terms used by medical personnel. Instructions for English-speaking patients should have "three times a day" or "twice a day" written out, though, not the Latin abbreviations.
"Just a guess, but I think Latin was chosen because:
A) As a dead language, it's neutral ground, favoring no modern language or its speakers B) It was a language commonly learned by scholars and educated people, so it made a good lingua franca throughout the European scientific and scholarly community C) It was the language of the Church, so it gained a lot of prestige from that." Mostly B, I think. In a sense it wasn't a dead language during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance because the learned classes spoke it, or at least read it. It was used because it was the natural choice--other learned people all over Europe would be able to understand your work. Attempting to conduct any kind of intellectual pursuit in any language other than Latin before, say, maybe 1600, would have been a career-limiting move--somewhat like trying to conduct international business in something other than English today. And even after whole books were no longer written in Latin, it retained its prestige and association with learning. At that point I suppose its international neutrality might have helped to extend its use as a source for scientific terms.
well with all diferent languages on the earth. we neded names for things that scientists from diferent places could understand. so many medical terms and souch are latin.
not a member : « I don't understand why latin words are used for scientific terms? Not just in English , but in every European language ! Why is Latin the Universal language of science ? ».
C'est le fonds lexical latin qui a été sollicité car quand la science médiévale occidentale a fait de grands progrès c'est le latin qui était la langue scientifique de l'Europe. La plupart des textes scientifiques médiévaux ont fait le trajet suivant (simplifié pour les besoins de la caus) : scriptogrec ancien → arabe médiéval écrit → scriptomédiolatin → variantes écrites des vernaculaires européens. Mais bien sûr beaucoup d'étymons grecs et arabes ont également été adoptés. La source grecque est toujours active aujourd'hui, aux côtés du latin, tandis que celle de l'arabe s'est tarie depuis fort longtemps. En ce qui concerne le moyen-anglais, il faut mentionner l'ancien français et le moyen français qui opéraient comme plateformes redistributrices : arabe → latin → français → anglais ; latin → français → anglais ; grec → français → anglais. Il existe bien sûr des cas où on trouve le trajet direct : latin → anglais, mais c'est une habitude issue d'une tradition française acclimatée.
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