International scientific vocabulary (ISV) is the set of scientific and specialized words that are in current use in several modern languages. Although the language of origin of ISV may or may not be certain, they are usedtranslingually, whether innaturalized,loanword, orcalque forms.
The name "international scientific vocabulary" was first used byPhilip Gove inWebster's Third New International Dictionary (1961).[1] As noted byDavid Crystal,[2] science is an especially productive field for new coinages. It is also especially predisposed to immediate translingual sharing of words owing to its very nature: scientists working in many countries and languages, reading each other's latest articles inscientific journals (via foreign language skills, translation help, or both), and eager to apply any reported advances to their own context.
According toWebster's Third, "some ISV words (likehaploid) have been created by taking a word with a rather general and simple meaning from one of the languages of antiquity, usuallyLatin andGreek, and conferring upon it a very specific and complicated meaning for the purposes of modernscientific discourse."[3] An ISV word is typically aclassical compound or a derivative which "gets only its raw materials, so to speak, from antiquity." Its morphology may vary across languages.
The online version of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (Merriam-Webster, 2002) adds that the ISV "consists of words or other linguistic forms current in two or more languages" that "differ fromNew Latin in being adapted to the structure of the individual languages in which they appear."[3] In other words, ISV terms are often made with Greek, Latin, or othercombining forms, but each language pronounces the resulting neo-lexemeswithin its own phonemic "comfort zone", and makes morphological connections using its normal morphological system. In this respect, ISV can be viewed as heavily borrowingloanwords fromNeo-Latin.
McArthur characterizes ISV words and morphemes as "translinguistic", explaining that they operate "in many languages that serve as mediums for education, culture, science, and technology."[4] Besides European languages, such as Russian, Swedish, English, and Spanish, ISV lexical items also function in Japanese, Malay, Philippine languages, and other Asian languages. According to McArthur, no other set of words and morphemes is so international.[4]
It is not always practically relevant, to any concerns exceptphilology and thehistory of science, which language any particular ISV term first appeared in, as its cognate naturalized counterparts in other languages are effectivelycoeval with it for most practical scientific purposes, as well as being self-evidently equivalent insurface analysis. This characteristic is corollary to the very nature of science: it is predisposed to immediate translingual sharing of words, as scientists, working in many countries and languages, are perennially reading each other's latest articles inscientific journals (via foreign language skills, translation help, or both), and eager to apply any reported advances to their own context. This theme applies even regardless of whether each instance of scientific exchange is openly collaborative (as inopen science) or is driven byespionage orindustrial espionage (as for example regarding weapons systems development).
The ISV is one of the concepts behind the development and standardization of theconstructed language calledInterlingua. Scientific and medical terms in Interlingua are largely of Greco-Latin origin, but, like most Interlingua words, they appear in a wide range of languages. Interlingua's vocabulary is established using a group ofcontrol languages selected as they radiate words into, and absorb words from, a large number of other languages. Aprototyping technique then selects the most recent common ancestor of each eligible Interlingua word or affix. The word or affix takes a contemporary form based on the control languages. This procedure is meant to give Interlingua the most generally international vocabulary possible.[5]
This is a list of scientific words andword roots which have different meanings from those in the original languages.
| Word or root | Scientific meaning | Original language | Original word | Original meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| andro-,-ander | stamen,man | Greek | ἀνήρ,ἀνδρός | man | in flowers of flowering plants |
| gyno-,-gyne | carpel,woman | Greek | γυνή,γυναικός | woman | |
| capno- | carbon dioxide | Greek | καπνός | smoke | |
| electro- | electricity | Greek | ἤλεκτρον | amber | viastatic electricity from rubbing amber |
| -itis | inflammation | Greek | -ῖτις | pertaining to | |
| thorax | chest (anatomy) | Greek | θώραξ | breastplate | |
| toxo- | poison | Greek | τόξον | bow (weapon) | via 'poisoned arrow'. It means 'bow' inToxodon and 'arc' inisotoxal. |
| macro- | big | Greek | μακρός | long | |
| In names of biological taxa | |||||
| -ceras | ammonite | Greek | κέρας | horn | via resemblance to aram's horn |
| -crinus | crinoid | Greek | κρίνος | lily | extracted from name "crinoid" |
| grapto- | graptolite | Greek | γραπτός | written | via resemblance of fossil |
| -gyrinus | labyrinthodont | Greek | γυρῖνος | tadpole | |
| -lestes | predator | Greek | λῃστής | robber | |
| -mimus | ornithomimid | Greek | μῖμος | mime | extracted from nameOrnithomimus = 'bird mimic' |
| -mys | rodent | Greek | μῦς | mouse | including inPhoberomys |
| -saurus | reptile,dinosaur | Greek | σαῦρος | lizard | |
| -stega, -stege | stegocephalian | Greek | στέγη | roof | via theircranium roofs as fossils |
| -suchus, -champsus | crocodilian | Ancient Egyptian | σοῦχος, χάμψα | Quoted by ancient Greek authors as Egyptian words for 'crocodile' | |
| therium | usuallymammal | Greek | θηρίον | beast,animal | |
| Names of bones | |||||
| femur | thighbone | Latin | femur | thigh | Classical Latingenitive oftenfeminis |
| fibula | (a leg bone) | Latin | fībula | brooch | tibia & fibula looked like a brooch and its pin |
| radius | (an arm bone) | Latin | radius | spoke | |
| tibia | shinbone | Latin | tībia | flute | via animal tibias modified into flutes |
| ulna | (an arm bone) | Latin | ulna | elbow,cubit measure | |
| Other | |||||
| foetus / fetus | unborn baby | Medical Latin | fētus (var.foetus) | As1st/2nd decl. adjective, 'pregnant' As4th decl. noun, 'the young of animals' | |
This is a list of scientific words andword roots which have one meaning from Latin and another meaning from Greek.
| Word or root | Scientific meaning from Latin | Example | Latin word | Latin meaning | Scientific meaning from Greek | Example | Greek word | Greek meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| alg- | alga | alga | alga | seaweed | pain | analgesic | ἄλγος | pain | |
| crema- | burn | cremation | cremāre | to burn (tr.) | hang, be suspended | cremaster | κρεμάω | to hang (tr.) |
This is a list of other scientific words andword roots which have two meanings.
| Word or root | Scientific meaning 1 | Example | Origin | Original meaning | Scientific meaning 2 | Example | Origin | Original meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| uro- | tail | Uromastyx | Greekοὐρά | tail | urine | urology | Greekοὖρον | urine | |
| mento- | themind | mental | Latinmēns | the mind | (of the) chin | mentoplasty | Latinmentum | chin |
Another difference between scientific terms and classical Latin and Greek is that many compounded scientific terms do notelide theinflection vowel at the end of aroot before another root or prefix that starts with a vowel, e.g.gastroenteritis; but elision happens ingastrectomy (not *gastroectomy).
The Greek wordτέρας (τέρατο-) = "monster" is usually used to mean "monster (abnormal)" (e.g.teratology, teratogen), but some biological names use it to mean "monster (enormous)" (e.g. the extinct animalsTeratornis (acondor with a 12-foot wingspan) andTerataspis (atrilobite 2 feet long)).
A feature affecting clarity in seeing a scientific word's components ishaplology, i.e. removing one of two identical or similar syllables that meet at the junction point of a compound word. Examples are:
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