| List Of Latin And Greek Words Commonly Used In Systematic Names |
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Although Latin is now largely unused except by Classical Scholar s and for certain purposes by Botanists and the Roman Catholic Church , Latin can still be found in scientific names. It is helpful to be able to understand the source of scientific names. While the 'Latin names' do not always correspond to the current English common names, they are often related, and if their meanings are understood they are easier to recall. Often a Genus name or Specific descriptor is simply the Latin or Greek name for the animal (e.g. ''Canis'' is Latin for a dog). These words are not included in the table below, because they will only occur for one or two taxa. The words listed below are the common adjectives and other modifiers that repeatedly occur in the scientific names of many organisms. The list also includes a collection of scientific words and common prefixes used in English. Words that are very similar to their English forms are not included. Not all the words or parts of words used in scientific names for living things are derived from Latin. Some are derived from Greek, some from languages local to the places where the organisms are found, and many from the names of the people who were involved in the discovery of an organism. However, all are treated grammatically as if they were Latin words. In particular, this means that words based on personal names end in ''-i'' for males and ''-ae'' for females. So "Humboldt's penguin" has the binomial name ''Spheniscus humboldti''. Note too, from this example, that despite the fact that Humboldt is a proper name, a species descriptor will not be capitalized. Greek, unlike Latin, is a living language. However, scientific nomenclature generally uses latinised spellings and uses Ancient Greek rather than Modern Greek vocabulary. While Latin is mostly found in use with biological studies, the remaining sciences and arts depend on an almost exclusively Greek lexicon. Medicine, for example, has an 80% Greek lexicon, although when biological studies are included the rate drops to 65%. The list includes personal names only where their Latin form is markedly different from their English or other original language form. Words that are very similar to their English forms are not included. Note that not all the attributions to languages in this table are authoritative. SEE ALSO LIST OF WORDS In this table L = Latin, G = Greek, and LG = similar in both languages. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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