LL-L "Lexicon" 2008.07.21 (01) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 21 July 2008 - Volume 01
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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.20 (01) [E]

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.18 (03) [E]
Is it actually easier to develop and use technical vocabularies in
English than in some other languages, and if so, is this at least partly
_because_ of the sparseness of grammatical inflection? In English
wholesale borrowing (especially from Greek, in scientific fields) is
normal, making it possible to build layers of technical vocabulary, but
do foreign loans actually help technical precision because the
scientific or taxonomic meaning isn't influenced by pre-existing
semantics?

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/


I think this is very much the case; a "Far-seer" could be a telescope, a
television - even a psychic! You don't have to know what "television" is
derived from, you just learn what one is. We could have used something like
Far-seer as in German, but then you need a "far-watcher" or "far-looker" for
telescopes and binoculars. A "coloured-body" could be anything; a chromosome
is one thing only, even though it just means "coulred body".

Whether the original creators of Latin/Greek technical terms were actually
being helpful I doubt; I suspect it was all part of the Classicist idea that
these languages are in some way "superior".

Paul Finlow-Bates

•

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