Medical English As Viewed from the Indo-European Comparative Linguistics

Abstract

In studying medical terms etymologically, there has hitherto been a general tendency to discuss etymology within the limits of Greek and Latin only. The author tried to enlarge the scope of such discussions of English medical terms through achievements of the Indo-European comparative linguistics. In the present report, the author thereby tried to broaden and also deepen the knowledge of medical English through the comparative study of cognate relationships between medical terms of Greek-Latin origin and English words of Germanic origin in accordance with the law of Indo-European sound correspondences. This method of studying Indo-European cognate words shed a new light on complicated medical terminology, and was helpful in understanding medical English from a simply fundamental viewpoint-namely, from Proto-Indo-European common roots.