Scientific Terminology - Classical and Non-vernacular Terms and Expressions

Classical and Non-vernacular Terms and Expressions

In modern science and its applied fields such as technology and medicine, a knowledge of Classical languages is not as rigid a prerequisite as it used to be. However, traces of their influence remain. Firstly, languages such as Greek, Latin and Arabic, either directly or via more recently derived languages such as French, have provided not only most of the technical terms used in Western science, but also a de facto vocabulary of roots, prefixes and suffixes for the construction of new terms as required. Echoes of the consequences sound in remarks such as "Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it."

A special class of terminology that overwhelmingly is derived from classical sources, is biological classification, in which binomial nomenclature still is most often based on classical origins. The derivations are arbitrary however and can be mixed variously with modernisms, late Latin, and even fictional roots, errors and whims. However, in spite of the chaotic nature of the field, it still is helpful to the biologist to have a good vocabulary of classical roots.

Branches of science that are based, however tenuously, on fields of study known to the ancients, or that were established by more recent workers familiar with Greek and Latin, often use terminology that is fairly correct descriptive Latin, or occasionally Greek. Descriptive human anatomy or works on biological morphology often use such terms, for example, Musculus gluteus maximus simply means the "largest rump muscle". (Musculus was the Latin for "little mouse", which was the name they applied to muscles.) During the last two centuries there has been an increasing tendency to modernise the terminology, though how beneficial that might be is subject to discussion. In other descriptive anatomical terms, whether in vertebrates or invertebrates, a frenum, a structure for keeping something in place, is simply the Latin for a bridle, and a foramen, a passage or perforation also is the actual Latin word.

All such words are so much terminology. It does not much matter whether modern users know that they are classical or not. Some distinct term is necessary for any meaningful concept, and if it is not classical, a modern coinage would not generally be any more comprehensible (consider examples such as "byte" or "dongle"). Another modern use of classical language however, is the subject of often acrimonious debate. It is the use of foreign or classical (commonly Latin) expressions terms, or "tags", where it would be possible to use the vernacular instead. This is common in everyday speech in some circles, saying "Requiescat in pace" instead of "Rest in peace" might be pretension or pleasantry, but in law and science among other fields, there are many Latin expressions in use, where it might be equally practical to use the vernacular. Consider the following discussion of the Latin term "sensu".