An episode in the history of Hungarian terminology: the debate on ’relatinizing’ at the beginning of the 20th century

Abstract

The linguistic and cultural history phenomenon of ’relatinizing’ rarely turns up as a technical term. It means going back to original Latin form of technical terms which were taken from Latin and modified according to the phonetic and grammatical character of the given language. The phenomenon, or the process, can be spontaneous or controlled; there are examples for both. It was István Apáthy who seriously brought up the question of ’relatinizing’ in terminology in the first decade of the 20th century. He pointed out that the majority of terminology vocabulary in Hungarian were words of Latin origin taken over from German or other languages where they had already been mutilated. In this way they were strange not only for our language but for Latin as well. An expert of Hungarian terminology, Kálmán Szily, argued Apáthy’s viewpoint. He claimed Apáthy was wrong because, as he reasoned, relying on firm principles and practice the Hungarian terminology had already accepted the different terms of Latin origin. He thought ’relatinizing’ would cause damage and confusion in the language system and would contradict one of the accepted principles of developing terminology, according to which the usual and integrated words, especially terms of Latin origin should be recognised. Their debate was published in the “Múzeumi Füzetek” and “Természettudományi Közlöny”, and resulted in the refusal of ’relatinization’ supported by majority of experts in terminology.