Lexical borrowings from classical languages in the english and french medical terminologies: a comparative study

Introduction: The present paper examines the types of terminological borrowings of classical origin in the modern English and French sublanguages of medicine. The aim: The authors aim to conduct the lexico-semantic analysis of borrowings from classical languages in the medical terminologies of English and French.

Materials and methods: The research is based on the corpus of terminological units from Dictionary of medical terms and Dictionnaire des termes médicaux et biologiques et des médicaments, using structural, typological and comparative methods.

Review: The terminological units under consideration were analyzed and grouped into three major categories: (1) adapted (assimilated) Latin and latinized Greek terms which underwent certain changes in the modern English and French; (2) non-adapted (non-assimilated) words which preserve the original form of classical languages, and (3) "hybrid borrowings" as a special combination of the previous two types. The research has revealed the fact that modern French has assimilated significantly more terms from classical languages, whereas English most commonly preserves their original (non-adapted) form.

Conclusions: Terminological borrowings from classical languages constitute an extensive layer of special vocabulary in both English and French sublanguages of medicine. The group of "hybrid borrowings", described in this paper, requires further in-depth study and is of particular interest for linguists and specialists in the field of terminology.