Vysokoškolská učebnice zoologie jako ukázka pronikání anglicismů do české biologické terminologie
A university zoology textbook as an example of how English loanwords spread into Czech biological terminology

Summary/Abstract: Internationally understandable words of Latin and Greek origin dominate scientific terminology. However, since the mid-20th century, the number of terms of English origin has also been increasing, in Czech more significantly after 1989. The aim of this case study is to illustrate how Anglicisms have pervaded Czech scientific vocabulary in the past 40 years. I followed up direct loanwords from English in three editions of the textbook Zoologie obratlovců (Zoology of the Vertebrates) by J. Gaisler and J. Zima, published by Academia in 1983, 2007, and 2018. The trend is clear: Anglicisms have increased noticeably, especially in the chapters on ethology, ecology, and genetics. The greatest increase occurred in the period between 1983 and 2007; the latest edition (2018) is enriched mainly with English names of newly described genes. In the text, Anglicisms are most often given in brackets as equivalents of Czech terms or as explanations of commonly used abbreviations. To a lesser extent, we also encounter English terms that lack Czech equivalents. The results demonstrate the growing influence of English on the scientific vocabulary that university students acquire.

• Details
• Contents