ANGLICISMS IN MEDICAL LATIN AS USED BY POLISH PHYSICIANS: A RARE CASE OF INFLUENCE OF MODERN ENGLISH ON THE DEAD LANGUAGE

The study was designed to describe and classify Anglicisms in modern medical Latin used for description of medical diagnosis and procedures in medical records. Obligatory use of Latin for that purpose in Poland until 2007 resulted in formation of a number of the English-derived medical terms. On the base of analysis of 250 medical records, Anglicisms were classified into six classes [(1) English terms that have no Latin equivalents; (2) English terms that are commonly used in Latin also they have proper Latin equivalents; (3) mixed English-Latin phrases; (4) syntactic calques; (5) semantic or phraseological calques; (6) English spelling of Latin words]. Mechanisms of development of Anglicisms were discussed. Anglicisms in Latin represent a unique phenomenon, the effect of modern English on the dead language.