O adaptaciji latinskih imena i nekih rimskih tehničkih termina / On the Adaptation of Latin Names and some Roman Technical Terms

The topic of this paper is Latin personal names and their adaptation into South Slavic languages based on a shtokavian standard (Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin), with examples and proposed solutions.  According to tradition, Latin names were first read and written phonetically, a process in which the original name was completely distorted, as its root was masked. A problem arises when researchers come into contact with rarer or newer names, either Greek or Latin, and, not paying attention to the rules of adaptation, adapt the new names by modelling them after similar names according to the Latin nominative or incorrectly read the root of the name and write them down phonetically.  This requires a permanent solution, which, we believe, lies in the original writing  which preserves the root of the name and leaves open the possibility of both pronunciations: the original Roman (classical) pronunciation, and the simplified (traditional) pronunciation brought about in the Middle Ages, e.g. Caesar-Caesara-s  Caesarom [Kajsar-Kajsara-s Kajsarom / Cezar-Cezara-s Cezarom]. In order to apply or, at least, attempt to apply this, it is necessary to become acquainted with the nature of the Latin language, which has its own principles of writing and pronunciation, especially with regard to ancient Rome as the subject of scholarly writing and publication. This, of course, cannot by applied to newlycoined technical terms from the fields of medicine, pharmaceuticals, and information technology, as they do not date from the classical period, but are rather modern  coined words which have a traditional approach to Latin and, while they are often  incorrectly coined, are not the subject of this paper. Examples are added which are incorrectly coined from the fields of government, law and religion, which are also adopted haphazardly and written according to the researcher’s discretion.