Latin influence in English
Encyclopedia
English
is a Germanic
language, having a grammar and core vocabulary inherited from Proto-Germanic. However, a significant portion of the English wordhoard comes from Romance
and Latinate sources. Estimates of native words (derived from Old English
) range from 20%–33%, with the rest made up of foreign borrowings. (These estimates, however, are based on the total raw counts of dictionary entries, where the frequency of use for most non-native words is low to nil. The true percent of native words used in everyday spoken and written English actually ranges from 75%–90%). A large number of these borrowings come directly from Latin
, or through one of the Romance languages, particularly Anglo-Norman
and French
, but some also from Italian
, Portuguese
, and Spanish
; or from other languages (such as Gothic
, Frankish
or Greek
) into Latin and then into English. The influence of Latin in English, therefore, is primarily lexical in nature, being confined mainly to words derived from Latin roots.
A survey by Joseph M. Williams
in Origins of the English Language of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics:
Based on the above, the percentage of Latin words used in formal business context (15%) is substantially lower than that of the dictionary survey (28.24%) due primarily to the effects of linguistic register
, where the vast majority of Latin words in English tend to be of a scientific or technical nature, or consist of words which are rarely to never used (i.e. are functionally obsolete).
, Saxon
and Jutes
) traded and fought with the Latin speaking Roman Empire
. Many words (some originally from Greek) for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people via Latin even before the tribes reached Britain: anchor, butter, camp, cheese, chest, cook, copper, devil, dish, fork, gem, inch, kitchen, mile, mill, mint (coin), noon, pillow, pound (unit of weight), punt (boat), sack, street, wall, wine.
Christian missionaries coming to Britain in the 6th century and 7th century brought with them Latin religious terms which entered the English language: abbot, altar, apostle, candle, clerk, mass, minister, monk, nun, pope, priest, school, shrive.
During this time, the Catholic Church had great influence on the development and expansion of the Old English language. Catholic monks mainly wrote or copied text in Latin, the prevalent Mediaeval lingua franca
of Europe. However, when monks occasionally wrote in the vernacular, Latin words were translated by finding suitable Old English equivalents. Often, a Germanic word was adapted and given a new shade of meaning in the process. Such was the case with Old English gōdspell ("gospel") for Latin evangelium. Previously, the Old English word simply meant "good news", but its meaning was extended in Old English to fit a religious context. The same occurred for the Old Germanic pagan word blētsian, which meant "to sacrifice, consecrate by shedding blood". It was adapted by Old English scribes and christened to become the word bless.
Whenever a suitable Old English substitute could not be found, a Latin word could be chosen instead, and many Latin words entered the Old English lexicon in this way. Such words include: biscop "bishop" from Latin episcopus, Old English teped "carpet" from Latin tapetum, and Old English sigel "brooch" from Latin sigillum. Other words came in, even though an adequate Old English term already existed, and this caused enrichment of the Old English vocabulary: culcer and læfel "spoon" from Latin coclearium and labellum beside Old English spōn and hlædel (Modern English ladle); Old English forca from Latin furca "fork" next to Old English gafol; Old English scamol "chair, stool" from Latin scamellum beside native stōl, benc and setl. All told, approximately 600 words were borrowed from Latin during the Old English period. Often, the Latin word was severely restricted in sense, and was not widespread in use among the general populace. Latin words tended to be literary or scholarly terms and were not very common. The majority of them did not survive into the Middle English Period.
and a lower class which spoke English. From 1066 until Henry IV of England
ascended the throne in 1399, the royal court of England spoke a Norman
language that became progressively Gallicised through contact with French
. However, the Norman rulers made no attempt to suppress the English language, apart from not using it at all in their court. In 1204, the Anglo-Norman
s lost their continental territories in Normandy and became wholly English. By the time Middle English
arose as the dominant language in the late 14th century, the Normans had contributed roughly 10,000 words to English, of which 75% remain in use today. Continued use of Latin by the Church and centres of learning brought a steady, though dramatically reduced, influx of new Latin lexical borrowings.
, from around 1500–1650, some 10,000 to 12,000 words entered the English lexicon, including lexicon. Some examples include: aberration, allusion, anachronism, democratic, dexterity, enthusiasm, imaginary, juvenile, pernicious, sophisticated. Many of these words were borrowed directly from Latin, both in its classical and medieval forms. In turn, Late Latin
also included borrowings from Greek.
s – particularly in technical contexts. A number of more subtle consequences include: numerous doublets
– two or more cognate terms from both a Germanic and Latinate source (or Latinate sources), such as cow/beef; numerous cases of etymological unrelated terms for closely related concepts, notably German nouns with a Latin adjective, such as bird/avian or hand/manual; complicated etymologies due to indirect borrowings (via Romance) or multiple borrowings; and usage controversies over the perceived complexity of Latinate terms.
from the Norman period, the use of Latinate words in the sciences gives us pairs with a native Germanic noun and a Latinate adjective:
Note that this is a common linguistic phenomenon, called a stratum in linguistics – one sees analogous phenomena in Japanese
(borrowing from Chinese for scientific vocabulary, and now English), and in Hindi
/Urdu
(Sanskrit
, with many Persian borrowings), among many others.
debate of the 16th and 17th century, where some authors rejected the foreign influence, and has continued to this day, being most prominent in Plain English
advocacy to avoid Latinate terms if a simple native alternative exists.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
is a Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
language, having a grammar and core vocabulary inherited from Proto-Germanic. However, a significant portion of the English wordhoard comes from Romance
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
and Latinate sources. Estimates of native words (derived from Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
) range from 20%–33%, with the rest made up of foreign borrowings. (These estimates, however, are based on the total raw counts of dictionary entries, where the frequency of use for most non-native words is low to nil. The true percent of native words used in everyday spoken and written English actually ranges from 75%–90%). A large number of these borrowings come directly from Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, or through one of the Romance languages, particularly Anglo-Norman
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, but some also from Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
; or from other languages (such as Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
, Frankish
Old Frankish
Old Frankish is an extinct West Germanic language, once spoken by the Franks. It is the parent language of the Franconian languages, of which Dutch and Afrikaans are the most known descendants...
or Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
) into Latin and then into English. The influence of Latin in English, therefore, is primarily lexical in nature, being confined mainly to words derived from Latin roots.
Word origins
A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) that estimated the origin of English words as follows:- Langue d'oïlLangues d'oïlThe langues d'oïl or langues d'oui , in English the Oïl or Oui languages, are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives spoken today in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands...
, including French and Old NormanOld NormanOld Norman, also called Old Northern French or Old Norman French, was one of many langues d'oïl dialects. It was spoken throughout the region of what is now called Normandy and spread into England, Southern Italy, Sicily, and the Levant. It is the ancestor of modern Norman, including the insular...
: 28.3% - Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
- Germanic languagesGermanic languagesThe Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
– inherited from Old English, from Proto-Germanic, or a more recent borrowing from a Germanic language such as Old NorseOld NorseOld Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
; does not include Germanic words borrowed from a Romance language, i.e., coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages: 25% - Greek: 5.32%
- No etymology given: 4.03%
- Derived from proper names: 3.28%
- All other languages: less than 1%
A survey by Joseph M. Williams
Joseph M. Williams
Joseph M. Williams was a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago.Williams began as a researcher of English language...
in Origins of the English Language of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics:
- French (langue d'oïl): 41%
- "Native" English: 33%
- Latin: 15%
- Old Norse: 5%
- Dutch: 1%
- Other: 5%
Based on the above, the percentage of Latin words used in formal business context (15%) is substantially lower than that of the dictionary survey (28.24%) due primarily to the effects of linguistic register
Register (sociolinguistics)
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
, where the vast majority of Latin words in English tend to be of a scientific or technical nature, or consist of words which are rarely to never used (i.e. are functionally obsolete).
Dark Ages
The Germanic tribes who would later give rise to the English language (the AnglesAngles
The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...
, Saxon
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
and Jutes
Jutes
The Jutes, Iuti, or Iutæ were a Germanic people who, according to Bede, were one of the three most powerful Germanic peoples of their time, the other two being the Saxons and the Angles...
) traded and fought with the Latin speaking Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. Many words (some originally from Greek) for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people via Latin even before the tribes reached Britain: anchor, butter, camp, cheese, chest, cook, copper, devil, dish, fork, gem, inch, kitchen, mile, mill, mint (coin), noon, pillow, pound (unit of weight), punt (boat), sack, street, wall, wine.
Christian missionaries coming to Britain in the 6th century and 7th century brought with them Latin religious terms which entered the English language: abbot, altar, apostle, candle, clerk, mass, minister, monk, nun, pope, priest, school, shrive.
During this time, the Catholic Church had great influence on the development and expansion of the Old English language. Catholic monks mainly wrote or copied text in Latin, the prevalent Mediaeval lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
of Europe. However, when monks occasionally wrote in the vernacular, Latin words were translated by finding suitable Old English equivalents. Often, a Germanic word was adapted and given a new shade of meaning in the process. Such was the case with Old English gōdspell ("gospel") for Latin evangelium. Previously, the Old English word simply meant "good news", but its meaning was extended in Old English to fit a religious context. The same occurred for the Old Germanic pagan word blētsian, which meant "to sacrifice, consecrate by shedding blood". It was adapted by Old English scribes and christened to become the word bless.
Whenever a suitable Old English substitute could not be found, a Latin word could be chosen instead, and many Latin words entered the Old English lexicon in this way. Such words include: biscop "bishop" from Latin episcopus, Old English teped "carpet" from Latin tapetum, and Old English sigel "brooch" from Latin sigillum. Other words came in, even though an adequate Old English term already existed, and this caused enrichment of the Old English vocabulary: culcer and læfel "spoon" from Latin coclearium and labellum beside Old English spōn and hlædel (Modern English ladle); Old English forca from Latin furca "fork" next to Old English gafol; Old English scamol "chair, stool" from Latin scamellum beside native stōl, benc and setl. All told, approximately 600 words were borrowed from Latin during the Old English period. Often, the Latin word was severely restricted in sense, and was not widespread in use among the general populace. Latin words tended to be literary or scholarly terms and were not very common. The majority of them did not survive into the Middle English Period.
Middle Ages
The Norman Conquest of 1066 gave England a two tiered society with an aristocracy which spoke Anglo-NormanAnglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
and a lower class which spoke English. From 1066 until Henry IV of England
Henry IV of England
Henry IV was King of England and Lord of Ireland . He was the ninth King of England of the House of Plantagenet and also asserted his grandfather's claim to the title King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence his other name, Henry Bolingbroke...
ascended the throne in 1399, the royal court of England spoke a Norman
Norman language
Norman is a Romance language and one of the Oïl languages. Norman can be classified as one of the northern Oïl languages along with Picard and Walloon...
language that became progressively Gallicised through contact with French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. However, the Norman rulers made no attempt to suppress the English language, apart from not using it at all in their court. In 1204, the Anglo-Norman
Anglo-Norman
The Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...
s lost their continental territories in Normandy and became wholly English. By the time Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
arose as the dominant language in the late 14th century, the Normans had contributed roughly 10,000 words to English, of which 75% remain in use today. Continued use of Latin by the Church and centres of learning brought a steady, though dramatically reduced, influx of new Latin lexical borrowings.
Renaissance
During the English RenaissanceEnglish Renaissance
The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th and early 16th centuries to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century; like most of northern...
, from around 1500–1650, some 10,000 to 12,000 words entered the English lexicon, including lexicon. Some examples include: aberration, allusion, anachronism, democratic, dexterity, enthusiasm, imaginary, juvenile, pernicious, sophisticated. Many of these words were borrowed directly from Latin, both in its classical and medieval forms. In turn, Late Latin
Late Latin
Late Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD extending in Spain to the 7th. This somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin...
also included borrowings from Greek.
Industrial Age
The dawn of the age of scientific discovery in the 17th and 18th centuries created the need for new words to describe newfound knowledge. Many words were borrowed from Latin, while others were coined from Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes, and Latin word elements freely combine with elements from all other languages including native Anglo-Saxon words. Some of the words which entered English at this time are: apparatus, aqueous, carnivorous, component, corpuscle, data, experiment, formula, incubate, machinery, mechanics, molecule, nucleus, organic, ratio, structure, vertebra.Consequences for English
In addition to the large number of historical borrowings and coinages, today Latinate words continue to be coined in English – see classical compoundClassical compound
Classical compounds are compound words composed from Latin or Ancient Greek root words. A large portion of the technical and scientific lexicon of English and other Western European languages consists of classical compounds. For example, bio- combines with -graphy to form biography...
s – particularly in technical contexts. A number of more subtle consequences include: numerous doublets
Doublet (linguistics)
In etymology, two or more words in the same language are called doublets or etymological twins when they have different phonological forms but the same etymological root. Often, but not always, the variants have entered the language through different routes...
– two or more cognate terms from both a Germanic and Latinate source (or Latinate sources), such as cow/beef; numerous cases of etymological unrelated terms for closely related concepts, notably German nouns with a Latin adjective, such as bird/avian or hand/manual; complicated etymologies due to indirect borrowings (via Romance) or multiple borrowings; and usage controversies over the perceived complexity of Latinate terms.
Noun/adjective doublets
As with Latinate/Germanic doubletsDoublet (linguistics)
In etymology, two or more words in the same language are called doublets or etymological twins when they have different phonological forms but the same etymological root. Often, but not always, the variants have entered the language through different routes...
from the Norman period, the use of Latinate words in the sciences gives us pairs with a native Germanic noun and a Latinate adjective:
- animals: ant/formic, bee/apian, bird/avian, crow/corvine, cod/gadoid, carp/cyprine, fish/piscine, gull/larine, wasp/vespine, butterfly/papilionaceous, worm/vermian, spider/arachnid, snake/anguine, tortoise (or turtle)/testudinal, cat/feline, rabbit/cunicular, hare/leporine, dog/canine, deer/cervine, reindeer/rangiferine, fox/vulpine, wolf/lupine, goat/caprine, sheep/ovine, swan/cygnean, duck/anatine, starling/sturnine, goose/anserine, ostrich/struthious, horse/equine, chicken/gallinaceous, cattle/bovine, pig/porcine, whale/cetacean, kangaroo/macropine, ape/simian, bear/ursine, man/human or hominid (gender specific: man/masculine, woman/feminine).
- physiology: head/capital, ear/aural, tooth/dental, tongue/lingual, lips/labial, neck/cervical, finger/digital, hand/manual, arm/brachial, foot/pedal, sole of the foot/plantar, leg/crural, eye/ocular or visual, mouth/oral, chest/pectoral, nipple/papillary, brain/cerebral, mind/mental, nail/ungual, hair/pilar, heart/cardial, lung/pulmonary, bone/osteotic, liver/hepatic, kidney/renal, blood/sanguine.
- astronomy: moon/lunar, sun/solar, earth/terrestrial, star/stellar.
- sociology: son or daughter/filial, mother/maternal, father/paternal, brother/fraternal, sister/sororal, wife/uxorial, uncle/avuncular.
- other: book/literary, edge/marginal, fire/igneous, water/aquatic, wind/vental, ice/glacial, boat/naval, house/domestic, door/portal, town/urban, light/optical, sight/visual, tree/arboreal, marsh/paludal, sword/gladiate, king/regal, fighter/military, bell/tintinnabulary.
Note that this is a common linguistic phenomenon, called a stratum in linguistics – one sees analogous phenomena in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
(borrowing from Chinese for scientific vocabulary, and now English), and in Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
/Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
(Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, with many Persian borrowings), among many others.
Indirect influence
It is not always easy to tell at what point a word entered English, or in what form. Some words have come into English from Latin more than once, through French or another Romance language at one time and directly from Latin at another. Thus we have pairs like fragile/frail, army/armada, corona/crown, ratio/reason, and rotund/round. The first word in each pair came directly from Latin, while the second entered English from French (or Spanish, in the case of armada). In addition, some words have entered English twice from French, with the result that they have the same source, but different pronunciations reflecting changing pronunciation in French, for example chief/chef (the former a Middle English borrowing and the latter modern). Multiple borrowings explain other word pairs and groups with similar roots but different meanings and/or pronunciations: canal/channel, poor/pauper, coy/quiet, disc/disk/dish/desk/dais/discus.With disc/disk some computing scientists make the distinction between disc and disk as being that the former is optical, such as: CD or DVD, and the latter is magnetic, such as a hard disk.http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2300Opposition
While in general reactions to the Latin influence on English have been neutral or positive – either not commenting or finding the vocabulary useful – there has been some opposition in the form of Anglo-Saxon linguistic purism, which rejects borrowings, especially Latinate, preferring instead native terms. This dates at least to the inkhorn termInkhorn term
An inkhorn term is any foreign borrowing into English deemed to be unnecessary or overly pretentious.- Etymology :...
debate of the 16th and 17th century, where some authors rejected the foreign influence, and has continued to this day, being most prominent in Plain English
Plain English
Plain English is a generic term for communication styles that emphasise clarity, brevity and the avoidance of technical language – particularly in relation to official government communication, including laws.The intention is to write in a manner that is easily understood by the target...
advocacy to avoid Latinate terms if a simple native alternative exists.
See also
- List of Latin words with English derivatives
- List of English words of French origin
- Classical compoundClassical compoundClassical compounds are compound words composed from Latin or Ancient Greek root words. A large portion of the technical and scientific lexicon of English and other Western European languages consists of classical compounds. For example, bio- combines with -graphy to form biography...
- Hybrid wordHybrid wordA hybrid word is a word which etymologically has one part derived from one language and another part derived from a different language.-Common hybrids:The most common form of hybrid word in English is one which combines etymologically Latin and Greek parts...
- LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
- List of Greek words with English derivatives
- List of Latin phrases
- Latin MnemonicsLatin mnemonicsA Latin mnemonic verse or mnemonic rhyme is a mnemonic device for teaching and remembering Latin grammar. Such mnemonics have been considered by teachers to be an effective technique for schoolchildren to learn the complex rules of Latin accidence and syntax...
- Latin schoolLatin SchoolLatin School may refer to:* Latin schools of Medieval Europe* These schools in the United States:** Boston Latin School, Boston, MA** Brooklyn Latin School, New York, NY** Brother Joseph C. Fox Latin School, Long Island, NY...
- List of Latin abbreviations
- List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names
- List of Latinised names
- List of legal Latin terms
- Medical terminologyMedical terminologyMedical terminology is a vocabulary for accurately describing the human body and associated components, conditions, processes and process in a science-based manner. Some examples are: R.I.C.E., trapezius, and latissimus dorsi. It is to be used in the medical and nursing fields...
- Romanization (cultural)Romanization (cultural)Romanization or latinization indicate different historical processes, such as acculturation, integration and assimilation of newly incorporated and peripheral populations by the Roman Republic and the later Roman Empire...
- ToponymyToponymyToponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...
- Wikipedia:IPA for Latin
- Greek and Latin roots in English