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Legal Latin’s Legacy in Modern Languages and Systems of Law

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Handbook of the Changing World Language Map

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Abstract

Legal terms that have a Latinate origin are so prevalent in the modern world that virtually every legal practitioner makes some use of them in writing or speaking about the law. The lingering legacy of this “Legal Latin” is a complex sociolinguistic phenomenon. While tradition, colonialism, and elitism are the conventional explanations for the continuing prevalence of Legal Latin in specific legal cultures or jurisdictions, they do not offer a sufficient account for the persistence of the language in the modern world. The best explanation may simply be that Legal Latin has always flourished in a multilingual environment, whether the Roman Empire, Renaissance Europe, the Holy Roman Empire and its successor (the European Union), or the modern world of globalization and international institutions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Humanities, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Roger S. Fisher

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  1. Roger S. Fisher
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Correspondence to Roger S. Fisher .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Kentucky Department of Geography, Lexington, Kentucky, USA

    Stanley D Brunn

  2. Deutscher Sprachatlas, Marburg University, Marburg, Hessen, Germany

    Roland Kehrein

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Fisher, R.S. (2018). Legal Latin’s Legacy in Modern Languages and Systems of Law. In: Brunn, S., Kehrein, R. (eds) Handbook of the Changing World Language Map. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_36-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_36-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73400-2

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