Science, we all had to take it in school. In high school more specific branches of science were looked into like, Biology and Chemistry. In both of these courses you actually hear many words with Latin roots. Albeit there are some Greek roots there as well.
When the sciences became of interest in the world the scientists used names that all other scientists could understand. So they chose terms that other educated member of their society would know, so there would be little confusion and have good stability. They derived many of the names the classical terms in Greek and Latin roots.
Today we still use the Periodic Table of Elements in Chemistry and Binomial Nomenclature in Biology. Binomial Nomenclature was created by a Swedish Botanist, Carolus Linnaeus, he even Latinized his own name. In a Guide to Reference and Information Sources in the Zoological Sciences by Diane Schmidt, she states that:
Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae organized about 4,000 plant and animal species in hierarchical classification system from kingdom to species, organized by morphological characteristics. Previously authors has a great deal of difficulty deciding how to arrange animal species,[…]. The most common system seemed to be alphabetical, except that it changed from language to language. Linnaeus introduced another idea, binomial nomenclature, that helped solve the language problem, as well. This innovation created a theoretically stable scientific name used by all biologists whatever their native tongue.
Linnaeus’ naming system, Binomial Nomenclature, made for less confusion and more stability in the naming of animal and plant species. It is a two part naming system where they were originally called “Latin Names.” Though many were Latin, Biologists later called them “Scientific Names” because some of the words were Latinized forms of names or other languages.
In the Periodic Table of Elements; many of the elements use abbreviations that come from the Latin terms, though their names English. Examples:
Ag (Argentum) Silver
Fe (Ferrum) Iron
Au (Aurum) Gold
Why should Latin be studied for the Sciences? Because it is useful. Is it not nice to understand what you are talking about? Many teachers and scientists agree that the study of Latin or Greek roots has helped them or if they had would help them more in their scientific field.
My aunt is a Marine Biologist. Waving my hands at her, I brought up my right hand and stated, “Dextra Manus.” Then I brought up my left, “Sinistra Manus.” She laughed and said that it made sense now. In the morphology of gastropods (snails) there is a types of snail where its shell spirals or whorls to the right and has an aperture on the right side. The direction of these whorls is said to be dextral. She then told me she had wished Latin or Greek had been a required, offered, course for her degree.
Maybe at minimum science courses should have their students work on the word roots. “Students can gain a broad understanding of the science word’s meaning by identifying the root of a word” (Aaron, Joshi, Quatroche, 2008). Learning something, like a little Latin, just to further your understanding of your study.
I thought this slide show has some potential for later use.
The study of Latin has some good potential. It is great for those who wish to study the sciences.
Actually, all scientific publications were printed entirely in Latin for most of the 18th century. It wasn't until the 19th century that science began publishing in vernaculars.
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