A Latinism (from lat-med, Latinismus) is a word,

idiom An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...

, or structure in a language other than

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

that is derived from, or suggestive of, the Latin language. The Term ''Latinism'' refers to those

loan words A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...

that are borrowed into another language directly from

(especially frequent among

inkhorn terms An inkhorn term is a loanword, or a word coined from existing roots, which is deemed to be unnecessary or overly pretentious. Etymology An inkhorn is an inkwell made of horn. It was an important item for many scholars, which soon became symb ...

); English has many of these, as well. There are many Latinisms in English, and other (especially European) languages.

Lexical Latinism

On the basic level of particular

words A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

and

lexemes A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken ...

, creation and adoption of Latinisms has a long history, dating back to the ancient times. Early lexical Latinisms are attested in various languages that came into contact with Latin language during the expansion of ancient Roman culture. The same process continued during the Middle Ages, and acquired new forms in modern times under the influence of scientific terminology, largely based on the

Scientific Latin Contemporary Latin is the form of the Literary Latin used since the end of the 19th century. Various kinds of contemporary Latin can be distinguished, including the use of New Latin words in taxonomy and in science generally, and the fuller e ...

. As a particular subgroup of lexical Latinisms, various

onomastic Onomastics (or, in older texts, onomatology) is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. An ''orthonym'' is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study. Onomastics can be helpful in data mining, w ...

Latinisms are formed through Latinisation of

proper names A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', ''Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...

, including

personal names A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known ...

and toponyms.

Syntactical Latinism

Renewed interest in Classical Latin literature during the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

period resulted in the emergence of various forms of syntactical Latinisms, manifested by a tendency of renaissance and later authors to shape the syntax of their sentences according to rhetorical style used by Classical Latin authors, like

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the est ...

and

Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, an ...

.G. Juan (2012): "Syntactic latinisms in the translation of the Eneida by don Enrique de Villena", Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 92 (306), pp. 179-211.

Idiomatic Latinism

Idiomatic Latinisms are

phrases In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can con ...

or idioms that are adopted from Latin language, or modeled according to Latin phraseology.

References

Latin language Word coinage {{Ling-stub de:Fremdwort#Lateinische Lehn- und Fremdwörter

Lexical Latinism

Syntactical Latinism

Idiomatic Latinism

See also

References