this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
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To be fair, it would be easier if English had kept the English terms for anatomy.
But for some reason everyone decided to only use Latin and Greek derived words.
Like seriously. Nearly every time I look at Wikipedia for anything, English articles only ever use scientific terms hardly anyone will find useful.
Example:
Wolf's entire biological taxonomical tree from species to order. Both the translated German Wikipedia title and the English one:
Species: Wolf <> Wolf
Genus: Wolf- and Jackal-like <> Canis
Tribe: True Dogs <> Canini
Family: Dogs <> Canidae
Suborder: Doglike <> Caniformia
Order: Predatory animal <> Carnivora
Ask someone what "Caniformia" is and most would probably think you're talking about some region on the US West Coast. Ask someone what "Doglike" refers to and most would probably guess reasonably correct.
Anyone who's a bit inquisitive about what words means will notice that "transform" means "changing shape", and that the teeth that look like dog fangs are called "canines". At that point, "caniformia" obviously means "dog-shaped".
Specialistic terms don't need to be easy for the layman, but to be explicative for the specialist. I can say that "a complete lattice is the generalisation of the power set of some domain" which is a phrase composed entirely of English words but if you haven't studied anything about abstract algebra you don't knkw what it means, but that is a phrase made for math students, not for any random guy.
Also those Latin terms are literally international terms, a Russian biologist will say "Canis lupus" to an Icelandic biologist and they will understand. So you really have nothing to complain about. Just be glad that Linnaeus used an agnostic language for international terminology instead of using his native language (Swedish) like the anglophones do.
P.s. you know that Mussolini had all commonly used foreign words and names translated to Italian? And to this day Italian children don't study Francis Bacon and René Descartes, but Francesco Bacone and Renato Cartesio.
I don't have an issue with using scientific names in scientific contexts if you intend to publish something international researchers should be able to parse. But just like maths, there is no problem in just... translating names? Imagine if you had to phrase sentences like: "The numerus realis make up a copia infinita." You'd have to translate Latin every time new studens would be taught because most mathematical terms convey a decent amount of information.
What I do have an issue with is using these terms anywhere outside of international contexts.
A doctor should not tell their patient they have a "humerus" fracture. In German they would take about the upper arm bone.
Or imagine if a doctor told you there is an infection in your digitus pedis. Fortunately English didn't replace the term "toes" with its scientific one... YET.
Hell, I could even apply this to doctor names in English which require a dictionary for anyone trying to parse them. I had to look up half of them by the way.
Children's Doctor <> Pediatrician
Women's Doctor <> Gynecologist
Tooth Doctor <> Dentist (the least bad in my opinion - at least it's short)
Eye Doctor <> Optometrist
Neck-Nose-Ear Doctor <> Otorhinolaryngologist (wtf???)
Skin Doctor <> Dermatologist
Like, surely there must have been (native) English terms for those doctors in the past. It's not like the medical field popped into existence in the 1700's. You can't tell me a 15th century English peasent used Latin/Greek derived names for common specialized doctors.
Perfect example of why that is a bad approach. An Optometrist can measure your eyes for basic vision problems and monitor your retina issues, but you'd need an Ophthalmologist if you need surgery on those eyes for something the Optometrist finds.
Optometrists/opticians aren't doctors over here though. They belong to the trades. This field doesn't exist in Germany the same way it does in the US/Britain:
Wikipedia
Eye doctors does actually refer to ophthalmologist though, I picked the "wrong" translation which ignores the differing legal frameworks. Looking back, I certainly went to the full blown ophthalmologist just for optometric purposes.
Ot- => ear
rhin- => nose
laryng- => throat
or just ENT, I've heard that being used.
"ear-nose-throat" is commonly used in English.
And it kind of is like the medical field popped into existence in the 1700s.
Otorhinolaryngology was born in the 1850s, though, not 1700s.
Partially. In German, the term eye doctor has first been recorded in 1401 (ougenarzt) (according to Wikipedia).
The 1700's made enormous medical progress - but it's not like people prior to that had no need for specialized doctors. For example, according to etymonline the term "dentist" was first used in 1759. You can't tell me dentists didn't exist for many centuries prior to that and didn't have an "English-derived", self-explanatory term. I mean, I never knew "dent" was Latin for tooth until reading the etymology just now.
Sure, but many of those words for specialised doctors came to English through French, not directly from Latin or Greek. And I don't think that you can reasonably argue that English words with French origins aren't by now a native part of the language. We use many of the same names in Dutch too, coming from French loanwords.
Wasn't English's French influence mostly over by this point? The Norman conquest added a bunch of French vocabulary but by the 1700's, England was a stable colonial power.
And for very frequently used terms - like anatomical terms - the English root remained mostly intact and loanwords weren't used. Arm, nose, shoulder, knee, elbow etc. are not French in origin.
I suspect it could be remnant of nobility separating itself from the common people. By only ever referring to anything with its Latin term, you can distinguish the wealthy, highly-educated from the poorer, lesser-educated people. After all, if you spoke Latin and/or Greek those terms make a lot of intuitive sense.
French remained influential in the courts, higher education, and elite society long after it stopped being the "official" language. That last part is totally right.