LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXXI (1994)

LANGUAGE NORMALIZATION ISSUES

KAZIMIERAS GAIVENIS

APPLYING INTERNATIONAL TERMINOLOGY PRINCIPLES TO OUR TERMINOLOGY

Nomenclature is a difficult and confusing matter, so only a few venture to strive for its perfection.

W. Arnold Lewis

International terminology management involves the preparation of various documents—terminology codes, standards, and nomenclature registers. These documents are usually discussed and approved at international congresses. The nomenclature of anatomy, botany, chemistry, geology, and zoology, the names of cultivated plant varieties, and electrical engineering terms have been standardized internationally. For instance, at the 5th International Congress of Anatomists in 1950, the International Anatomical Nomenclature Committee was established; it approved the following principles for terminology management:

1. Each body organ should be designated by a single term (exceptions are very rare).

2. All terms in the official list must be given in Latin. Each country is free to create equivalents of the Latin terms in its native language.

3. Anatomical terms should be as short and simple as possible.

4. Terms should be easy to remember; their instructive and descriptive character is also desirable.

5. Body organs that are closely related topographically should, where possible, be designated by similar names (arteria femoralis, vena femoralis, nervus femoralis, etc.).

6. Different adjectives should be used in contrasting pairs (major — minor, superior — inferior, superficialis — profundus).

7. Eponyms (proper names) should not be used in the official nomenclature of descriptive and microscopic anatomy¹.

International botanical and zoological nomenclature codes specify the ranks of taxonomic units and the general structure of principal names, and standardize the use of synonyms, homonyms, etc.

¹ Nomina Anatomica. Международная анатомическая номенклатура. М., 1970. Cit. pagal Keinys S. Terminologijos abėcėlė. V., 1980. P. 88.

11

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) brings together national standardization organizations. Draft international standards adopted by technical committees are approved by the ISO Council. Not only the terminology of individual fields is standardized, but also the principles and methods of terminology.

All these international activities are connected to some extent with our terminology as well. For example, in 1977 the Kaunas Medical Institute (now the Kaunas Medical Academy) published the work “International Nomenclature of Embryology”; in 1989, A. Praškevičius, R. Kazakevičius, and L. Lukaševičius published the booklet “The International System of Units in Medicine.” In preparing multivolume academic scholarly works (e.g., “The Fauna of Lithuania,” “The Flora of Lithuania”) and Lithuanian-language textbooks for higher education (e.g., S. Pavilonis, R. Stropus, K. Tamašauskas, and A. Urbonas’s “Human Anatomy,” A. Pabijanskas’s “Anatomy of Farm Animals,” etc.), Lithuanian terminology is brought into line with the requirements of international terminology codes and standards. Despite all this work, our terminology remains provincial in many respects and is not properly organized. On the other hand, not all international terminology standards and codes are themselves of a high scientific level. For example, when preparing the Lithuanian version of the ISO standard “Terminology Principles and Methods” (704—87), we noticed that some of its statements do not accord with contemporary linguistic concepts (e.g., the interpretation of the concepts of synonyms and quasi-synonyms, the alternation of synchronic and diachronic principles in identifying and describing methods of term formation, etc.). The same can be said of works published in Lithuania. For example, the collection “International Nomenclature of Embryology” contains quite a few incorrect terms, e.g.: tarpruja (metoestrus), dviruja (dioestrus), priešruja (prooestrus), gimdyminis periodas (puerperium), daugiagemalinis nėštumas (polyembrionica gestatio), vienasegmentiniai raumenys (musculi monosegmentales), trilapėlinis trynio maišas (trilaminaris saccus vitellinus), etc.

What difficulties arise when applying international terminology principles to our terminology?

First, we know little about the activities and work of international terminology organizations (e.g., INFO-TERM and the International Institute for Terminology Research, among others), and we maintain no direct contacts with them. Even their publications cannot be found in Lithuanian research libraries.

Second, our scholars and production specialists are accustomed to looking for models of terminology rather than its universals. Consequently, as the prestige of Russian declines, they turn to English, and the influence of Anglicisms is becoming increasingly pronounced. This, too, is undesirable. In some scientific fields (e.g., plant and animal taxonomy, medicine, etc.), only Latin can to some extent be regarded as an international model. But even it should not be copied blindly. International terminology codes often state that terms should be translated into national languages. Our specialists, however, often understand the translation of terms too literally, as nothing more than a grammatically equivalent translation. For example, the Russian term комплектующие детали is translated into Lithuanian in a grammatically equivalent way (active participle by active participle) as komplektuojančios detalės, whereas it should be translated non-equivalently, using a passive participle, that is, as komplektuojamosios detalės. Poor translation gives rise to such

12

word combinations as cannot exist in our language. Worst of all, some names become entrenched not only in terminology but also in company nomenclature, and persist for decades, e.g.: remonto mechaninė gamykla (or: remonto-mechaninė gamykla). Its Russian name is ремонтно-механический завод. The Lithuanian name should be mechaninio remonto įmonė.

Third, the interlinguistic approach to terminology runs counter to our traditions of terminological work. For example, the Warsaw-based international organization for the unification of terminological neologisms, IOUTN (International Organization for Unification of Terminological Neologisms), bases its recommendations for organizing technical terminology on the following principles²:

1. Give discoveries, inventions, or newly emerging concepts names that can be adopted into other languages without change or with only minor changes.

2. In the language of science and technology, use new words, where possible, in their original form or with only slight modifications (for example, by adding a prefix or suffix), while retaining the root of the original word.

3. Following the tradition established in some fields of science and technology, it is advisable to use Greek and Latin as the basis for term formation (as Russian and English are used in cosmonautics).

4. What has been said does not apply to terminology already in use. If its shortcomings could endanger human life or health, then the terms already in use should also be standardized.

5. If it is impossible to adopt the original form of a new term, it is recommended that scientific and technical dictionaries also provide the original name alongside it.

In recent decades, two trends have become particularly dangerous for our language of science and its terminology: 1) a flow of international terms that is difficult to regulate, and 2) an influx of calques from Russian.

Specialists began to avoid Lithuanian neologisms. Term formation, which in S. Šalkauskis’s theory of terminology had been the most important method of creating new terms, became unproductive. It was outcompeted by borrowing terms and creating hybrid neologisms. Given the state of our terminology, interlinguistic principles of terminology seem difficult to apply.

Fourth, although international terminology codes allow national languages considerable freedom, they nevertheless distance terminology and nomenclature too far from both the standard language and colloquial speech. As a result, our terminology sometimes disregards even important requirements of terminology codes (e.g., the binomial principle for naming species is not followed in the terminology of plant and animal taxonomy, etc.). Our physicists use one set of names for derived SI units, while medical practitioners use another. For example, the “Dictionary of Physics Terms” (V., 1979) gives the names liumensekundė (a measure of luminous energy), metras kubu sekundei (a measure of volumetric flow rate), whereas the aforementioned booklet “The International System of Units in Medici-

²For more detail, see Стоберский З. Научная и техническая терминология // Известия АН СССР. Серия лит. и языка. М., 1974. Т. 33(5). С. 448 – 453; Neoterm. Warszawa, 1987. Nr. 7 – 8. S. 6 – 10.

13

lumen per second, cubic meter per second, and so on. The system of names for derived units used by physicians is closer to ordinary and spoken language, whereas the terminology used by physicists is very strictly standardized.

The fifth point is that some recommendations in international codes are contradictory. For example, the use of eponymous terms (formed from the names of scientists, discoverers, and inventors) is prohibited in the international code of anatomical nomenclature, restricted to certain taxa in the international code of zoological nomenclature, and permitted without any restrictions in technical terminology. Eponymous terms abound in all fields of science. They are used especially widely in medical, technical, physical, and mathematical terminology. These terms differ from others primarily in that they are insufficiently motivated. Their positive feature is that they can immortalize people who have made significant contributions to science. In our terminology, this type of term is of two kinds: 1) single words, e.g.: joule, kelvin, curie, ohm, roentgen, volt; and 2) compounds, e.g.: Archimedes' principle, Doppler velocity, Cartesian coordinates, Addison's disease, Ebstein's syndrome, etc. In Russian terminology, eponymous terms of the “adjective + noun” type are also still popular, e.g.: марковский процесс, гайморова полость, евстахиева труба, дугласово пространство, and so on. We avoid such terms in Lithuanian and would consider them nonstandard. In general, the assessment of eponymous terms is highly controversial, and rules for their use have not been established. In some Lithuanian terminology dictionaries (e.g., the “Dictionary of Medical Terms” and others), almost all eponymous terms have been replaced with other terms.

International recommendations for the harmonization of terms and international terminology codes take little account of two important factors: 1) the nature of languages (what is suitable for analytical languages may not be suitable for synthetic languages, and so on); and 2) the degree of development of languages and the number of people who speak them (languages with unequally developed functional styles and terminological systems cannot be equal partners).

The sixth point is that Lithuanian terminology and nomenclature have relatively old traditions of organization, and have been and continue to be influenced more by the terminology and nomenclature of the major neighboring languages (Russian, German, and others) than by international codes, collections of rules, or standards for the normalization of terms. This is clearly illustrated by the history of the organization of Lithuanian chemical nomenclature, which contains a relatively large number of international elements and is perhaps the farthest removed from ordinary language, as well as by its current state.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry was founded in 1921. After many meetings, a collection of rules for the formation of chemical nomenclature was published in 1940. During those two decades, Lithuanian chemical terminology was also actively organized: original Lithuanian chemistry textbooks and monographs were published, e.g.: F. Butkevičius's “Elementary Qualitative Analysis” (1929), V. Ruokis's “Analytical Chemistry” (1922), “Organic Chemistry” (1923), V. Čepinskis's “Physical Chemistry” (1928–1930), and others; in 1928, Prof. F. Butkevičius presented a draft Lithuanian chemical nomenclature at the Lithuanian Teachers' Congress.

Because of the turmoil of war, the collection of international rules for chemical nomenclature was not considered at the time and was known to few. It was not until 1947 that a decision was made to review these rules. After lengthy deliberations, they were substantially revised and published in 1953

14

in English and French. They were revised in Switzerland in 1955, in England in 1956, and in France in 1957. An edition of these rules was published in 1970 in the journal “IUPAC Information Bulletin: Appendices on Tentative Nomenclature, Symbols, Units and Standards” (1970, September, N 8). In the Soviet Union, the rules were published as a separate book only in 1979 — «Номенклатурные правила ИЮПАК по химии». Meanwhile, K. Daukšas's Lithuanian “Dictionary of Chemistry” was published in 1960. In this dictionary, as its preface states, “the numerals indicating the quantities of atoms and groups (di, di-, tri-) and the indeclinable prefixes (azo, nitro, ortho, thio, etc.) are attached to the main word, e.g.: dichloride, divalent, tribromide, azobenzene, nitro compound, orthacid, thiosulfate. Some prefixes denoting a type are separated by a hyphen, in keeping with tradition, e.g.: alpha-iron, beta rays. Lithuanian endings are attached to foreign names, e.g.: phenyl, toluol. An effort was made to attach the ending -ol to the names of alcohols and phenols, and -ol to hydrocarbons, e.g.: phenol, naphthol, benzol, toluol. The names of electrolytes and organic compounds consisting of groups are written separately, namely: ammonium sulfate, methyl chloride, ethyl acetate. The name of an atom or group introduced into a compound molecule is attached to the main word, with a vowel omitted, e.g.: bromoethylene, diacetylbenzobenzene, ethoxyaniline. Similar components of double salts are joined by a hyphen, e.g.: potassium-aluminum alum. The components of complexes are joined by hyphens, e.g.: potassium hexachloroplatinate. Complex acids and some sulfonic acids are written in two ways, namely: hydrogen hexacyanoferrate or hexacyano-iron (2) acid, toluene sulfonic acid or sulfotoluene [...] Acid names are given mostly in the genitive form, e.g.: nitric acid, oxalic acid, butyric acid, because these names are shorter than “nitrous, oxalic, butyric”” (pp. 3–4). Later, K. Daukšas wrote similarly about the refinement of chemical nomenclature: “For the sake of information, the ending ‘-ol’ is distinguished in nomenclature from ‘-ol’ and ‘-al’. The ending ‘-ol’ indicates the alcoholic function of a compound (phenol), ‘-ol’ provides no definite information, but merely indicates kinship with hydrocarbons (benzol, toluol), and ‘-al’ indicates a mixture (solution, dye, grease, kerosene). Likewise, the ending ‘-ide’ indicates the negative polarization of an element (oxide, hydride, sulfide, chloride), ‘-yl’ the positive polarization of an element or group (nitrile, acetyl, cupryl), and ‘-ate’ the negative polarization of a group (sulfate, carbonate). Joining words can also increase the information content. For example, an atom, group, or molecule attached in a complex manner is written with the letter ‘o’ (diamminesilver, hexachloroplatinate), whereas non-complexly attached substituents are written without ‘o’ (chlorobenzene)”³. This terminology had not yet been adapted to IUPAC rules. When this nomenclature began to be used, linguists objected to two things: 1) the use of a hyphen in some of the compounds mentioned above; and 2) long, multi-stem names. A. Valeckienė wrote about this chemical nomenclature: “Sometimes genitive compounds are written with a hyphen, e.g.: dichloroaurates, fluoroaluminates, fluoroborates, fluorogermanates, but strontium aluminates,

³ Daukšas K. Apie chemijos terminų darybą // Lietuvių kalbos sekcijos sąsiuvinis. 1969. Sąs. 10. P. 11.

15

fluoro vandenilis (without a hyphen). Here a hyphen is unnecessary”⁴. Regarding multiroot terms, she noted that “compounds of this kind are often joined into one word, instead of which a compound of the latter type would be preferable, e.g.: acetiloksiacetonas (= acetilo oksiacetonas), benzolazonaf tilaminas (= benzolo azonafilaminas), heksametilacetonas (= heksametilo acetonas), dimetilaminazobenzolas (= dimetilio amino (ar amininis) azobenzolas), triaminbenzoine rūgštis (= triamino benzoine rūgštis), metilaminoksibenzoine rūgštis (= metilo amino oksibenzoine rūgštis), and so on.”⁵ Many linguists were especially irritated by the name aminorūgštys, written as one word. It was proposed more than once that it be corrected. Chemists, however, disagreed. In announcing a program to refine organic chemistry terminology, they wrote: “When the name of an atomic group is expressed by international indeclinable words (nitro-, nitroso-, azo-, sulfo-, thio-, thia-, hydroxy-, methoxy-, aceto-, butyro-, amido-, acrylo-, etc.), these are written as prefixes, joined to the word they modify. Thus the words nitromethane, thiophenol, hydroxybenzaldehyde, acetonitrile (not aceto nitrile), axilonitrile (not axilo nitrile) are formed. If the main word begins with a vowel, the linking letter o is omitted (one says acetanilide, axilamide). The word amine may have two meanings: in the first case, amine denotes a compound with NH₂ or NHR groups (the whole compound), while in the second the indeclinable prefix amino- refers only to the NH₂ group itself. Therefore one should say amine oxides (e.g., methylamine hydrochloride); in the second case, the words must be joined (e.g., aminophenols, amino acids, and so on).”⁶.

In accordance with international principles, our chemical nomenclature still needs considerable refinement. Under the prepared draft⁷, the names of ethers R¹—O—R² are formed from the name of the radical R¹O and the name of the hydrocarbon corresponding to radical R², e.g.: isopropoxypropane, ethoxyethene. Primary amines and secondary and tertiary amines with symmetrical structures are named by adding the suffix -amine to the radical, e.g.: ethylamine, triethylamine. The names of acyclic aldehydes and ketones are formed by adding the respective suffixes -al or -one to the name of the hydrocarbon with the same number of carbon atoms, e.g.: hexanal, 2-butanone, and so on. The rules of international (IUPAC) nomenclature do not entirely dispense with trivial names, although some are unwilling to admit them into our scientific language. In general, the rules of international (IUPAC) nomenclature have hitherto been unpopular and little known. Lithuanian chemists therefore now face the task of internationalizing nomenclature.

In accordance with international nomenclature, preference should be given to genitive forms of nouns rather than adjectives with the suffix -inis, -ė, e.g.: lactic acid, nicotinic acid and even deoxyribonucleic acid, and so on. The genitive is better suited to expressing dependence or origin, whereas adjectives with the suffix -inis, -ė in these meanings are most often calques from Russian.

⁴ Valeckienė A. Kitų kalbų kilmės sudurtiniai žodžiai // Kalbos kultūra. 1968. Sąs. 15. P. 21.

⁵ Ibid. P. 23.

⁶ Degutis J., Daukšas V., Mačionis Z. et al. Program for Refining Organic Chemistry Terminology // Mokslas ir technika. 1989. No. 10. P. 30.

⁷ Author — E. Butkus. The draft was discussed at a joint meeting of chemists and linguist terminologists on February 12, 1991.

16

ADOPTION OF INTERNATIONAL TERMINOLOGY PRINCIPLES TO THE LITHUANIAN TERMINOLOGY

Summary

This paper deals with the problems of adoption of Lithuanian terms to the international codices of anatomical, botanical, and zoological terminology. It also investigates the standardization of chemical nomenclature in accordance with the international requirements of IUPAC. Some difficulties in attempting to modernize terminology and to preserve its Lithuanian nature have been pointed out.

2. Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai, XXXI