Thus one of the advantages of going to the Greek and Latin languages for the origin of our scientific terms is, that in this way we obtain words which admit of the formation of adjectives and abstract terms, and of composition, and of other inflexions. Another advantage of such an origin is, that such terms, if well selected, are readily understood over the whole lettered world. For this reason, the descriptive language of science, of botany for instance, has been, for the most part, taken from the Latin; many of the terms of the mathematical and chemical sciences have been derived from the Greek; and when occasion occurs to construct a new term, it is generally to that language that recourse is had. The advantage of such terms is, as has already been intimated, that they constitute an universal language, by means of which 320 cultivated persons in every country may convey to each other their ideas without the need of translation.
On the other hand, the advantage of indigenous terms is, that so far as the language extends, they are intelligible much more clearly and vividly than those borrowed from any other source, as well as more easily manageable in the construction of sentences. In the descriptive language of botany, for example, in an English work, the terms drooping, nodding, one-sided, twining, straggling, appear better than cernuous, nutant, secund, volubile, divaricate. For though the latter terms may by habit become as intelligible as the former, they cannot become more so to any readers; and to most English readers they will give a far less distinct impression.
2. Since the advantage of indigenous over learned terms, or the contrary, depends upon the balance of the capacity of inflexion and composition on the one hand, against a ready and clear significance on the other, it is evident that the employment of scientific terms of the one class or of the other may very properly be extremely different in different languages. The German possesses in a very eminent degree that power of composition and derivation, which in English can hardly be exercised at all, in a formal manner. Hence German scientific writers use native terms to a far greater extent than do our own authors. The descriptive terminology of botany, and even the systematic nomenclature of chemistry, are represented by the Germans by means of German roots and inflexions. Thus the description of Potentilla anserina, in English botanists, is that it has Leaves interruptedly pinnate, serrate, silky, stem creeping, stalks axilllar, one-flowered. Here we have words of Saxon and Latin origin mingled pretty equally. But the German description is entirely Teutonic. Die Blume in Achsel; die Blätter unterbrochen gefiedert, die Blättchen scharf gesagt, die Stämme kriechend, die Bluthenstiele einblumig. We could imitate this in our own language, by saying brokenly-feathered, sharp-sawed; by using threed for ternate, as the Germans employ gedreit; by saying 321 fingered-feathered for digitato-pinnate, and the like. But the habit which we have, in common as well as scientific language, of borrowing words from the Latin for new cases, would make such usages seem very harsh and pedantic.
We may add that, in consequence of these different practices in the two languages, it is a common habit of the German reader to impose a scientific definiteness upon a common word, such as our [Fifth] Aphorism requires; whereas the English reader expects rather that a word which is to have a technical sense shall be derived from the learned languages. Die Kelch and die Blume (the cup and the flower) easily assume the technical meaning of calyx and corolla; die Griffel (the pencil) becomes the pistil; and a name is easily found for the pollen, the anthers, and the stamens, by calling them the dust, the dust-cases, and the dust-threads (der Staub, die Staub-beutel, or Staub-fächer, and die Staub-fäden), This was formerly done in English to a greater extent than is now possible without confusion and pedantry. Thus, in Grew’s book on the Anatomy of Plants, the calyx is called the impalement, and the sepals the impalers; the petals are called the leaves of the flower; the stamens with their anthers are the seminiform attire. But the English language, as to such matters, is now less flexible than it was; partly in consequence of its having adopted the Linnæan terminology almost entire, without any endeavour to naturalize it. Any attempt at idiomatic description would interfere with the scientific language now generally received in this country. In Germany, on the other hand, those who first wrote upon science in their own language imitated the Latin words which they found in foreign writers, instead of transferring new roots into their own language. Thus the Numerator and Denominator of a fraction they call the Namer and the Counter (Nenner and Zähler). This course they pursued even where the expression was erroneous. Thus that portion of the intestines which ancient anatomists called Duodenum, because they falsely estimated its length at twelve inches, the 322 Germans also term Zwölffingerdarm (twelve-inch-gut), though this intestine in a whale is twenty feet long, and in a frog not above twenty lines. As another example of this process in German, we may take the word Muttersackbauchblatte, the uterine peritonæum.
It is a remarkable evidence of this formative power of the German language, that it should have been able to produce an imitation of the systematic chemical nomenclature of the French school, so complete, that it is used in Germany as familiarly as the original system is in France and England. Thus Oxygen and Hydrogen are Sauerstoff and Wasserstoff; Azote is Stickstoff (suffocating matter); Sulphuric and Sulphurous Acid are Schwefel-säure and Schwefelichte-säure. The Sulphate and Sulphite of Baryta, and Sulphuret of Baryum, are Schwefel-säure Baryterde, Schwefelichte-säure Baryterde, and Schwefel-baryum. Carbonate of Iron is Kohlen-säures Eisenoxydul; and we may observe that, in such cases, the German name is much more agreeable to analogy than the English one; for the Protoxide of Iron, (Eisenoxydul,) and not the Iron itself, is the base of the salt. And the German language has not only thus imitated the established nomenclature of chemistry, but has shown itself capable of supplying new forms to meet the demands which the progress of theory occasions. Thus the Hydracids are Wasserstoff-säuren; and of these, the Hydriodic Acid is Iodwasserstoff-säure, and so of the rest. In like manner, the translator of Berzelius has found German names for the sulpho-salts of that chemist; thus he has Wasserstoffschwefliges Schewefellithium, which would be (if we were to adopt his theoretical view) hydro-sulphuret of sulphuret of lithium: and a like nomenclature for all other similar cases.
3. In English we have no power of imitating this process, and must take our technical phrases from some more flexible language, and generally from the Latin or Greek. We are indeed so much accustomed to do this, that except a word has its origin in one of these languages, it hardly seems to us a technical 323 term; and thus by employing indigenous terms, even descriptive ones, we may, perhaps, lose in precision more than we gain in the vividness of the impression. Perhaps it may be better to say cuneate, lunate, hastate, sagittate, reniform, than wedge-shaped, crescent-shaped, halbert-headed, arrow-headed, kidney-shaped. Ringent and personate are better than any English words which we could substitute for them; labiate is more precise than lipped would readily become. Urceolate, trochlear, are more compact than pitcher-shaped, pulley-shaped; and infundibuliform, hypocrateriform, though long words, are not more inconvenient than funnel-shaped and salver-shaped. In the same way it is better to speak (with Dr. Prichard[57],) of repent and progressive animals, than of creeping and progressive: the two Latin terms make a better pair of correlatives.
[57] Researches, p. 69.
4. But wherever we may draw the line between the proper use of English and Latin terms in descriptive phraseology, we shall find it advisable to borrow almost all other technical terms from the learned languages. We have seen this in considering the new terms introduced into various sciences in virtue of our [Ninth] Maxim. We may add, as further examples, the names of the various animals of which a knowledge has been acquired from the remains of them which exist in various strata, and which have been reconstructed by Cuvier and his successors. Such are the Palæotherium, the Anoplotherium, the Megatherium, the Dinotherium, the Chirotherium, the Megalichthys, the Mastodon, the Ichthyosaurus, the Plesiosaurus, the Pterodactylus. To these others are every year added; as, for instance, very recently, the Toxodon, Zeuglodon, and Phascolotherium of Mr. Owen, and the Thylacotherium of M. Valenciennes. Still more recently the terms Glyptodon, Mylodon, Dicynodon, Paloplotherium, Rhynchosaurus, have been added by Mr. Owen to designate fossil animals newly determined by him. 324
The names of species, as well as of genera, are thus formed from the Greek: as the Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus (long-necked), Ichthyosaurus platyodon (broad-toothed), the Irish elk, termed Cervus megaceros (large-horned). But the descriptive specific names are also taken from the Latin, as Plesiosaurus brevirostris, longirostris, crassirostris; besides which there are arbitrary specific names, which we do not here consider.
These names being all constructed at a period when naturalists were familiar with an artificial system, the standard language of which is Latin, have not been taken from modern language. But the names of living animals, and even of their classes, long ago formed in the common language of men, have been in part adopted in the systems of naturalists, agreeably to Aphorism [Third]. Hence the language of systems in natural history is mixed of ancient and modern languages. Thus Cuvier’s divisions of the vertebrated animals are Mammifères (Latin), Oiseaux, Reptiles, Poissons; Bimanes, Quadrumanes, Carnassières, Rongeurs, Pachydermes (Greek), Ruminans (Latin), Cétacés (Latin). In the subordinate divisions the distribution being more novel, the names are less idiomatic: thus the kinds of Reptiles are Cheloniens, Sauriens, Ophidiens, Batraciens, all which are of Greek origin. In like manner. Fish are divided into Chondropterygiens, Malacopterygiens, Acanthopterygiens. The unvertebrated animals are Mollusques, Animaux articulés, and Animaux rayonnés; and the Mollusques are divided into six classes, chiefly according to the position or form of their foot; namely, Cephalopodes, Pteropodes, Gasteropodes, Acephales, Brachiopodes, Cirrhopodes.