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A. PARIANOU/P.I. KELANDRIAS–TRANSLATION OF TERMS OF GREEK ORIGIN IN LSP TEXTS
they mostly stay the same in the target language. Yet, new blends e.g. arcology (architectural
+ ecology), or telematics (telecommunication + informatics) present a translation problem when
their meaning is not yet known. The term telematics for example consists of the confixes
tele- that is of Greek origin and the Latin -matics. The Greek language keeps these two
confixal elements and renders them as thlematik» (= telematiki). The key to understand
the meaning of these morphological amalgams lies in the localization of their constituent
elements and the understanding of their meaning.
When translating LSP we must understand the difference between simple loans
and neologisms that is not always obvious from the morphological aspect of the term. For
example geography, typography and bibliography are loans. On the other hand, tomography and
electronography are neologisms. Loans are easily understood and translated because of their
age and the degree of acquaintance and familiarity we have with them; however,
neologisms can be misleading because we must be aware that we have to deal with words
which have appeared recently and which are not yet comprehensible and do not exist in
this morphological form in the language from which they have been borrowed. It is almost
certain that a recently created LSP expression is a neologism.
The question that arises here is why languages such as Greek and Latin still have
the power to inspire and motivate languages such as English and German to create new
words or to adopt and give new meanings to older Greek and Latin words. The following
reasoning will clarify this decision. We can distinguish between motivated and
unmotivated neologisms. Loanwords that in their original language were motivated cease
to be so when adopted by another language and certainly belong to the unmotivated
neologisms as transparent, self-explanatory terms no longer exist in this language 6 . Thus
we may say that in most cases the new terminology will be unmotivated and will serve as
a tool for describing and denominating new aspects of things without any connotative
involvement, as denotation is the only thing that seems to interest terminography and
terminology. It makes a connotative and emotional difference if we speak of haemorrhage
or bleeding in English, of Hydropsie or Wassersucht in German. Moreover, ancient Greek
scientists had already discovered and denominated scientific principles and methods
while Greek and later Latin physicians made a remarkable progress in medicine. Thus,
modern scientists have a rich stock of terms that, in combination with the flexibility of
Greek language, constitute a valuable tool in the attempt to denominate new scientific
findings.
LOANWORDS AND LANGUAGES
When we compare the English and German LSP we shall find out that far more
loanwords deriving from Greek and Latin are used in English than in German (cf. Scheler
1996: 152). The German language has often the possibility to use German terms where
the English language knows only the borrowed terms. While the English language has no
synonyms for example for Greek LSP terms such as hydrogen and oxygen the German
language has the synonyms Wasserstoff and Sauerstoff. The terms Hydrogenium for hydrogen
and Oxygenium for oxygen in German are used as LSP terms when denoting the chemical
symbol for hydrogen and oxygen and are substituted by their German counterparts when
they are used in other LSP contexts. This shows us that even in LSP there are
6 This does not mean that these loanwords – in their original language – were by all means motivated. Especially
in medical terminology a number of Greek terms may still be motivated, understood and connotatively covered by the
Greek people.
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