THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH ON THE ARMENIAN MEDICAL VOCABULARY

Abstract

As science grows rapidly, in different languages new terms are created and formed according to certain word formation and grammatical rules. The aim of the current paper is the study of word formation strategies of medical terminology in English and Armenian. The results of the survey reveal that in both languages most medical terms have Greek and Latin origin. Naturally, both languages have enriched their medical terminology by borrowing terms from German, French, in case of English, and Persian, Arabic, Russian, in case of Armenian. Recently many medical terms have paved their way into Armenian either directly from English or via English. Unlike English, where loanwords are mostly used in adapted or partially adapted forms, in Armenian native equivalents are more preferable. The results of the study show that language planning is part of Armenian language policy and government policy, the number of loan translations (calques), loan renditions, loan creations and hybrids are more than the number of loan words in Armenian medical terminology.