DYNAMICS OF MEDICAL LANGUAGE DUE TO POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT
DYNAMICS OF MEDICAL LANGUAGE DUE TO POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT

Summary/Abstract: Along the successive ages of human history, medicine has evolved from traditional and magic practices connected to health and spiritual wellbeing. During the golden age of Greek culture in ancient times, European medicine has become a science with a well-founded terminology based on Greek vocabulary. As political power shifted to Rome, Latin became the second great source of medical terminology. Due to the nature of Greek and Latin languages as well as to the use of Latin in academic and scientific circles long after the fall of the Roman Empire, the ancient medical terminology has been perpetuated along history until the 21st century. However, in the second half of the 20th century, English became an important language for medical science and for science in general, due to the growing political and economic power of the United States of America. The socio-economic development that propelled the United States among the world’s most powerful and influential countries has attracted thousands and thousands of highly educated youth and adults from all over the world, generation after generation. The influence of English worked twofold: the economic power caused the development of industry and research. Meanwhile, the students and the physicians who were yearning to earn more money and live a better life had to learn English in order to occupy a place in the American society, adding to its development and prestige. Thus, conferences, books, translations, articles and journals promoted English as the first most important language of communication in the academic environment. All these factors have an important impact on the development of the English medical terminology which has naturally permeated various medical languages.

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