Question:
I am an Italian student and i need some suggestions for my thesis.
I am conducting a research about the influence of latin in English, mainly
from the legal point of view. For this reason I am looking for a legal text
( it could be of any kind, an act, a bill...) which could be of help and
which I can use as an example for my theory.
Could any of you give me recommendations about where I could find it or
interesting details about this subject?
Answer:
English legal Latin is an abomination. Its main function is to obscure
mattes for most English speakers. And its pronunciation ensures that no
one with a training in either classical Latin or in Italianate church
Latin has the slightest idea what those ugly sounds are supposed to mean.
If you get a copy of _Black's Law Dictionary_, you can find all the
Latinisms in current legal use. The number of texts discussing the
history of the use of Latin in English is huge. Almost every text on
the history of English, or of Anglo-Saxon England, or of Norman England
will discuss the entry of Latin terms into English use and the use of
English in legal documents. Histories of English and lexicography that
include the 17th century will also tell you of the conscious attempt to
root out Latinisms and replace them with English. A decent bibliography
of this material would be many pages long. One of the main phases of
writing a thesis or dissertation is reading the existing literature. I
suggest you get busy; your question suggests you have not done this.
Since you have not given a hint of your "theory," which is more likely
some isolated hypothesis and not a theory at all, there is no way that
anyone can suggest what material might support it.
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