Concept
International scientific vocabulary
Overview
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 used translingually, whether in naturalized, loanword, or calque forms.
The name "international scientific vocabulary" was first used by Philip Gove in Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1961). As noted by David Crystal, 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 in scientific journals (via foreign language skills, translation help, or both), and eager to apply any reported advances to their own context.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
A nomenclature may be defined, the collection of the names of all the Kinds with which any branch of knowledge is conversant; or more properly, of all the lowest Kinds, or _infirmæ species_—those which may be subdivided indeed, but not into Kinds, and which generally accord with what in natural history are termed simply species. Science possesses two splendid examples of a systematic nomenclature; that of plants and…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what International scientific vocabulary is.
Certain North-American tongues very well illustrate this. In a Ricaree vocabulary extending to fifty names of common objects, which in English are nearly all expressed by single syllables, there is not one monosyllabic word; and in the nearly-allied vocabulary of the Pawnees, the names for these same common objects are monosyllabic in but two instances.
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
States what International scientific vocabulary is.
In a mechanistic civilization, there is grave danger of a crude utilitarianism, which sacrifices the whole æsthetic side of life to what is called “efficiency”. Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I must confess that I view with alarm the theory that language is merely a means of communication, and not also a vehicle of beauty.
Bertrand Russell, Education and the good life
States what International scientific vocabulary is.
Related ideas
- Animal
- Greek language
- History of science
- Cremation
- Latin
- Mind
- Philology
- Pain
- Root (linguistics)
- Loanword
- Dinosaur
- Electricity
- Webster's Third New International Dictionary
- Monster
Place in the tradition
Part of Greek language.
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