Medical terminology

Last updated

Medical terminology is a language used to precisely describe the human body including all its components, processes, conditions affecting it, and procedures performed upon it. Medical terminology is used in the field of medicine.

Contents

Medical terminology has quite regular morphology, the same prefixes and suffixes are used to add meanings to different roots. [1] The root of a term often refers to an organ, tissue, or condition. For example, in the disorder known as hypertension, the prefix "hyper-" means "high" or "over", and the root word "tension" refers to pressure, so the word "hypertension" refers to abnormally high blood pressure. [2] The roots, prefixes and suffixes are often derived from Greek or Latin, and often quite dissimilar from their English-language variants. [3] This regular morphology means that once a reasonable number of morphemes are learnt it becomes easy to understand very precise terms assembled from these morphemes. Much medical language is anatomical terminology, concerning itself with the names of various parts of the body.

Discussion

In forming or understanding a word root, one needs a basic comprehension of the terms and the source language. The study of the origin of words is called etymology. For example, if a word was to be formed to indicate a condition of kidneys, there are two primary roots – one from Greek (νεφρός nephr(os)) and one from Latin (ren(es)). Renal failure would be a condition of kidneys, and nephritis is also a condition, or inflammation, of the kidneys. The suffix -itis means inflammation, and the entire word conveys the meaning inflammation of the kidney. To continue using these terms, other combinations will be presented for the purpose of examples: The term supra-renal is a combination of the prefix supra- (meaning "above"), and the word root for kidney, and the entire word means "situated above the kidneys". The word "nephrologist" combines the root word for kidney to the suffix -ologist with the resultant meaning of "one who studies the kidneys".

The formation of plurals should usually be done using the rules of forming the proper plural form in the source language. Greek and Latin each have differing rules to be applied when forming the plural form of the word root. Often such details can be found using a medical dictionary.

Morphology

Medical terminology often uses words created using prefixes and suffixes in Latin and Ancient Greek. In medicine, their meanings, and their etymology, are informed by the language of origin. Prefixes and suffixes, primarily in Greek—but also in Latin, have a droppable -o-. Medical roots generally go together according to language: Greek prefixes go with Greek suffixes and Latin prefixes with Latin suffixes. Although it is technically considered acceptable to create hybrid words, it is strongly preferred not to mix different lingual roots. Examples of well-accepted medical words that do mix lingual roots are neonatology and quadriplegia.

Prefixes do not normally require further modification to be added to a word root because the prefix normally ends in a vowel or vowel sound, although in some cases they may assimilate slightly and an in- may change to im- or syn- to sym-.

Suffixes are attached to the end of a word root to add meaning such as condition, disease process, or procedure.

In the process of creating medical terminology, certain rules of language apply. These rules are part of language mechanics called linguistics. The word root is developed to include a vowel sound following the term to add a smoothing action to the sound of the word when applying a suffix. The result is the formation of a new term with a vowel attached (word root + vowel) called a combining form. In English, the most common vowel used in the formation of the combining form is the letter -o-, added to the word root. For example, if there is an inflammation of the stomach and intestines, this would be written as gastro- and enter- plus -itis, gastroenteritis.

Suffixes are categorized as either (1) needing the combining form, or (2) not needing the combining form since they start with a vowel.

See also

Related Research Articles

An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem. It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.

International scientific vocabulary (ISV) comprises scientific and specialized words whose language of origin may or may not be certain, but which are in current use in several modern languages.

Sona is an international auxiliary language created by Kenneth Searight and described in a book he published in 1935. The word Sona in the language itself means "auxiliary neutral thing". Contrary to popular belief, the similarity to the English word 'sonorous' is superficial.

A root is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family, which carries aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Content words in nearly all languages contain, and may consist only of, root morphemes. However, sometimes the term "root" is also used to describe the word without its inflectional endings, but with its lexical endings in place. For example, chatters has the inflectional root or lemma chatter, but the lexical root chat. Inflectional roots are often called stems. A root, or a root morpheme, in the stricter sense, may be thought of as a monomorphemic stem.

The Greek language has contributed to the English lexicon in five main ways:

In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. Typically, a stem remains unmodified during inflection with few exceptions due to apophony

Proto-Indo-European verbs reflect a complex system of morphology, more complicated than the substantive, with verbs categorized according to their aspect, using multiple grammatical moods and voices, and being conjugated according to person, number and tense. In addition to finite forms thus formed, non-finite forms such as participles are also extensively used.

The original word base of Esperanto contained around 900 root words and was defined in Unua Libro, published by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. In 1894, Zamenhof published the first Esperanto dictionary, Universala vortaro, which was written in five languages and supplied a larger set of root words, adding 1740 new words.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warlpiri language</span> Aboriginal Australian language

The Warlpiri language is spoken by close to 3,000 of the Warlpiri people from the Tanami Desert, northwest of Alice Springs, Central Australia. It is one of the Ngarrkic languages of the large Pama–Nyungan family and is one of the largest Aboriginal languages in Australia in terms of number of speakers. One of the most well-known terms for The Dreaming, Jukurrpa, derives from Warlpiri.

Neoclassical compounds are compound words composed from combining forms derived from classical languages roots. Neo-Latin comprises many such words and is a substantial component of the technical and scientific lexicon of English and other languages, via international scientific vocabulary (ISV). For example, Greek bio- combines with Latin -graphy to form biography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern Pomo language</span> Pomoan language

Eastern Pomo, also known as Clear Lake Pomo, is a nearly extinct Pomoan language spoken around Clear Lake in Lake County, California by one of the Pomo peoples.

Sungor is an Eastern Sudanic language of eastern Chad and western Sudan and a member of the Taman language family. It is closely related to Tama with some resarchers speaking of a Tama-Assangori continuum.

The Ojibwe language is an Algonquian American Indian language spoken throughout the Great Lakes region and westward onto the northern plains. It is one of the largest American Indian languages north of Mexico in terms of number of speakers, and exhibits a large number of divergent dialects. For the most part, this article describes the Minnesota variety of the Southwestern dialect. The orthography used is the Fiero Double-Vowel System.

The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) are basic parts of words that carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots usually have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run". Roots never occurred alone in the language. Complete inflected verbs, nouns, and adjectives were formed by adding further morphemes to a root and potentially changing the root's vowel in a process called ablaut.

English prefixes are affixes that are added before either simple roots or complex bases consisting of (a) a root and other affixes, (b) multiple roots, or (c) multiple roots and other affixes. Examples of these follow:

This article presents a brief overview of the grammar of the Sesotho and provides links to more detailed articles.

Lau (Law) is a Jukunoid language of Lau LGA, Taraba State, Nigeria. Lau speakers claim that their language is mutually intelligible with the Jukunoid language varieties spoken in Kunini, Bandawa, and Jeshi. They also live alongside the Central Sudanic-speaking Laka, who live in Laka ward of Lau LGA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uropi</span> International auxiliary language for Europe.

Uropi is a constructed language which was created by Joël Landais, a French English teacher. Uropi is a synthesis of European languages, explicitly based on the common Indo-European roots and aims at being used as an international auxiliary language for Europe and thus contributing to building a European identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anatomical terminology</span> Scientific terminology used by anatomists, zoologists, and health professionals

Anatomical terminology is a form of scientific terminology used by anatomists, zoologists, and health professionals such as doctors, physicians, and pharmacists.

References

  1. ↑ "Introduction to Medical Terminology - AAPC". www.aapc.com. Archived from the original on 2022-05-23. Retrieved 2022-04-06.
  2. ↑ Creative Commons by small.svg  This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.Betts, J Gordon; Desaix, Peter; Johnson, Eddie; Johnson, Jody E; Korol, Oksana; Kruse, Dean; Poe, Brandon; Wise, James; Womble, Mark D; Young, Kelly A (February 26, 2016). Anatomy & Physiology. Houston: OpenStax CNX. 1.6. Anatomical Terminology. ISBN   978-1-93-816813-0. ID: 14fb4ad7-39a1-4eee-ab6e-3ef2482e3e22@8.24. Archived from the original on March 16, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2018.
  3. ↑ Betts, J Gordon; Desaix, Peter; Johnson, Eddie; Johnson, Jody E; Korol, Oksana; Kruse, Dean; Poe, Brandon; Wise, James; Womble, Mark D; Young, Kelly A (October 3, 2013). Anatomy & Physiology. Houston: OpenStax CNX. 1.6. Anatomical Terminology. ISBN   978-1-93-816813-0. ID: 14fb4ad7-39a1-4eee-ab6e-3ef2482e3e22@6.11. Archived from the original on January 9, 2014. Retrieved November 16, 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.