Latinisation of names
Latinisation (or Latinization)
In a scientific context, the main purpose of Latinisation may be to produce a name which is internationally consistent.
Latinisation may be carried out by:
- transforming the name into Latin sounds (e.g. Jabir), or
- adding Latinate suffixes to the end of a name (e.g. Meibomius for Meibom), or
- translating a name with a specific meaning into Latin (e.g. Venator for Italian Cacciatore; both mean 'hunter'), or
- choosing a new name based on some attribute of the person (e.g. Daniel Santbech became Noviomagus, possibly from the Latin (actually Latinised Gaulish) name for the town of Nijmegen, and meaning 'new field').
Personal names
Humanist names, assumed by
The title of the "Wilhelmus", national anthem of the Netherlands, preserves a Latinised form of the name of William the Silent.[3]
Place names
In English, place names often appear in Latinised form. This is a result of many early text books mentioning the places being written in Latin. Because of this, the English language often uses Latinised forms of foreign place names instead of anglicised forms or the original names.
Examples of Latinised names for countries or regions are:
- Estonia (Estonian name Eesti, Dutch/German/Scandinavian name Estland, i.e. 'land of the Aesti')
- Ingria (Finnish Inkerinmaa, German/Scandinavian Ingermanland, i.e. 'land of the Ingermans', the local tribe)
- Livs', the local tribe)
- .
Scientific names
Latinisation is a common practice for
Historical background
During the age of the
During the
By the early 19th century, Europe had largely abandoned Latin as a scholarly language (most scientific studies and scholarly publications are printed in English), but a variety of fields still use Latin terminology as the norm. By tradition, it is still common in some fields to name new discoveries in Latin. And because Western science became dominant during the 18th and 19th centuries, the use of Latin names in many scholarly fields has gained worldwide acceptance, at least when European languages are being used for communication.
References
- ^ a b "Latinize – definition of Latinize in English". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on October 27, 2017.
- University of Munich. Archived from the originalon Jun 5, 2013. Retrieved 2013-03-21.
- ^ national-anthems.org – "Facts About National Anthems".
- ^ "Declension of Greek Substantives in Latin". Later Latin Society. Informalmusic. Retrieved 2015-07-14.
Sources
- Nicolson, Dan H. (1974). "Orthography of Names and Epithets: Latinization of Personal Names". Taxon. 23 (4). International Association for Plant Taxonomy: 549–561. JSTOR 1218779.