LATIN LEGAL TERMINOLOGY IN ESTONIA

Th e article examines the use of Latin in contemporary legal texts and its impact on terminology. Th e terminology analysed in the article comprises the terms collected from the Estonian juridical periodicals. Attention is paid to the following topics: average size of the vocabulary of the Estonian lawyer; the most frequent Latin terms and phrases; context of Latin terms and phrases; main problems and errors in the use of Latin.


Introduction
Latin has great signifi cance for law: the Estonian legal system as part of the legal system of continental Europe is based on Roman Law, which is considered the common denominator of European legal systems; it is also called "the lingua franca of the world's jurisconsults" (Wieacer 1978:97).Th e same consistency can be observed in the language of Roman Law as wellthe Latin language.Th us, in Estonian texts we can fi nd juridical terms in Latin, which developed more than two thousand years ago.
In recent decades Latin juridical terminology has been gradually becoming more important as regards the understanding and communication between lawyers representing diff erent languages and legal systems (Benke, Meissel 1997:10).It is also observed that the use of Latin expressions facilitates unifying the European judicial system and makes juridical literature internationally understandable (Knütel 1994:251).
Th e terminology analysed in my paper comprises the terms collected from the Estonian periodical Juridica during the last 13 years.Th e motivation to survey the usage of Latin from that aspect was caused by the compilation 1 Lecturer of History of Law, Institute of Private Law, Faculty of Law, University of Tartu.M.A. in Classical Philology (University of Tartu), currently doctoral student in Faculty of Law (University of Tartu).Main areas of research: Latin legal terminology and linguistics of law, Roman law and legal history.In total 23 publications and 14 conference presentations.merike.ristikivi@ut.ee of a "Latin-Estonian Legal Dictionary" (Adomeit, et al. 2005(Adomeit, et al. ) (published in 2005)).As a member of the group working on it, my main interest and purpose were to fi nd out the Latin terms and phrases which are commonly used by Estonian lawyers and therefore should be included in the Dictionary.

Journal Juridica as the basis of the research
Th e reason I chose the Juridica as the basis of my research was that the Juridica has been the most important Estonian juridical journal.Th e fi rst issue of the Juridica was published in 1993 as a journal of the faculty of law of Tartu University.In 13 years the Juridica has developed from a small faculty magazine into the most infl uential legal journal.Th e articles in the Juridica contain texts dealing with all major areas of law and thus give an objective overview of the diff erent aspects of terminology.In years articles have been published about public and private law in Estonia, as well as international law, the laws of the EU and the theory, history and philosophy of law.Still, it should be specifi ed that articles concerning the history of law and Roman law -that is, topics which in general contain numerous Latin terms -were only few; for instance, there was only one article about Roman Law (Siimets-Gross 2002: 626-634).Hence, the list of the terms and phrases does not include fi rst and foremost legal history, but gives an overview of the general vocabulary of today's lawyers.
Over the years, the journal Juridica has been used as additional study material in teaching lawyers; every year also summaries of the bachelor and master thesis of law students have been published there 2 .Th ose articles compiled by students enable us to get a good overview of the tendency in using Latin by a future generation of lawyers.

Co-authors of the Juridica
Th e circle of co-authors is very wide.Over the years, specialists from diff erent fi elds have published their articles in the Juridica.Besides the professors and students of the faculty of law, the faculty of economics and business administration and 2 In special issues of bachelor and master students, Latin is used quite oft en: on average 29 terms or phrases per issue of Juridica: 6/1996 (29 Latin terms), 7/1997 (11), 6/1998 (16), 6/1999 (20), 5/2000 (17); during recent years, the usage of Latin terms and phrases has increased: 5/2001 (47), 5/2002 (64).
the faculty of social sciences of Tartu University -we can see among the authors also professors and students from other Estonian universities, such as Tallinn Technical University and the Public Service Academy.
A large group of co-authors are members of Parliament and civil servants from various ministries.Judicial authorities have also published articles in the journal, such as the legal chancellor, attorneys, prosecutors, and judges.A smaller group of co-authors are specialists from auditing and insurance companies, medical, and religious circles.

Frequency of usage of Latin terms and phrases
Th e research includes issues of the Juridica from the years 1993-2005 (i.e. from the beginning till nowadays).All in all, there are 126 issues3 .Th ese 126 issues of the Juridica contain 1148 articles and 7251 pages.
732 diff erent Latin terms and phrases can be found in the articles.In total, Latin was used 4110 times; consequently, on average 30 terms or phrases per issue and 3-4 terms or phrases per article.If we divide the number of pages by the number of terms and phrases, we can see that the Latin language appears on average on every second page of the Juridica.Some issues do not include any Latin terms, for instance in the 3 rd issue of 1997 not a single Latin term is used.Th e 4 th issue of 1997 and the 1 st and 4 th issue of 1995 contain only one term.On the other hand, a great number of terms and phrases can be found in the 1 st and 9 th issue of 2004 -108 and 86 terms respectively.Th e 6 th issue of 2001 contained 91 terms, the 4 th issue of 2005 155 terms, the 8 th issue of 1996 156 terms and the 4 th issue of 1999 included as many as 195 terms.

Th e number of terms and phrases in issues of Juridica
Th e usage of Latin terms primarily depends on the historical development of the particular area of law.Latin terms and phrases are oft en used in articles on legal theory, philosophy of law, criminal law, international law, succession, and the law of obligation.In all these areas the body of terminology in use nowadays, developed in ancient times already, or during the Middle Ages.
Very few terms or no terms at all are to be seen in articles on labour law, family law, and business law.Th e development and study of these fi elds has mostly taken place in the 20 th century.Hence there is very little or no connection with Roman Law from which the greater part of Latin legal terms originates.As we can see, the usage of Latin terms and phrases has noticeably increased over the years, especially during the last couple of years.In 1993, in total 66 terms were used, which makes on average a rather modest 1.08 Latin expressions per article.5 years later, in comparison, (in 1998) already 266 terms were used, which is on average 2.9 expressions per article.And last year, in 2005, there were 456 instances of Latin terms used in the articles, which is on average 5.3 Latin expressions per article.

Most frequent terms and phrases
Latin juridical terms are typically single words -stem words or compound words.In addition to nouns, also verbs, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and adverbs are used as terms.Latin terms are concise and economical, enabling one to convey the notion which otherwise in one's native language might require a lengthy explanation.
Th e most frequent terms and phrases are corpus iuris (159 'body of law'), lex mercatoria (96 'commercial law'), de lege ferenda (88 'desirable to establish according to the law'), culpa in contrahendo (58 'pre-contractual liability'), lex fori (48 'the law of the court'), de facto (42 'in fact'), de lege lata (38 'according to the law in force'), pacta sunt servanda (21 'agreements of the parties must be observed'), lex specialis derogat generali (18 'a special statute overrules a general one'), nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege (14 'there should be no crime and no punishment without a law fi xing the penalty'), in dubio pro reo (12 'in a doubtful case, the defendant is to be preferred'), ne bis in idem (9 'not twice for the same' , i.e. an individual may not be tried twice for the same crime).
According to the frequency of usage, at least 5 times 118 terms and phrases were used, at least 3 times 185 were mentioned and at least 2 times I found 262 Latin terms and phrases.If we look at the frequency of usage, we can say that approximately 200 Latin terms and phrases are contained in the active vocabulary of Estonian lawyers.

Th e context of Latin terms and phrases
Whilst analysing the collected material, I was also interested in when and in what context the terms and phrases are used.In general, Latin can be found in two ways: 1. Th e terms are used in rhetoric or for illustrative purposes, e.g., "Th e appendix of the Directive is mutatis mutandis 5 in the Law of Obligations Act § 42." (Ginter 2001:506) 2. Th e terms are normative arguments and contain specifi c juridical information, e.g., "Th erefore the legal defi nition of the delict in modern Penal Codes contains primarily principle nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege." (Sootak 2001:448) In my research I very oft en noticed that although Estonian lawyers like to use Latin expressions in their articles, the translation into Estonian is usually missing.It is clear that sometimes Latin expressions in the text can cause misunderstanding and misinterpretation on the part of the reader.Th e problem is not very acute when well-known juridical terms are used.For example, the nemo iudex 6 principle, the lex specialis 7 precept, or the stare decisis 8 concept or the quotation from the 2 nd issue of Juridica of the year 1999: "On certain conditions it can be claimed, that what in Germany is with the status of the prosecutor in the criminal procedure de facto, is in Estonia at the moment de lege lata, and in my opinion, it could also be, with slight modifi cations, de lege ferenda." (Kergandberg 1999:65) Although the sentence was long and diffi cult to follow, according to the frequency of usage, all the terms used belong to the basic vocabulary of lawyers and are therefore actually known.
However, quite oft en very rare terms can be found, which contain specifi c juridical information.It seems to me that, for those readers without a background in legal studies or special commentaries and explanations, those sentences might not be completely understandable.A good knowledge of Latin alone is not suffi cient for the correct interpretation here.Even more, it might happen that the whole concept of the context will be unclear if the meaning of the Latin word or term is misunderstood.For example, a quotation from the year 2000: "Th e doctor must replace the paternalistic hippocratic approach salus aegroti suprema lex 9 with the current principles of contemporary society voluntas aegroti suprema lex, which is specifi ed by the sentence nihil nocere." (Nõmper 2000:447) Here, on the contrary, the sentence can be easily followed by philologists, but it is diffi cult for lawyers.

Problems and mistakes
Th ere occur several problems when using Latin terms.In Latin, a synthetic language, grammatical relationships are represented in the words by applying infl ectional endings and suffi xes.As a result, the recognition and understanding of a Latin term may be aff ected by the use of the singular and the plural form, as well as the use of a term in diff erent case forms or with various prepositions.For example: actio -actiones ('action -actions'), 6 Nemo iudex in causa sua ('no man can be a judge in his own case').
Mistakes frequently appear in the orthography of Latin terms, as well as in the agreement between case forms and gender forms and in translation of Latin terms.Th e most common problem when using Latin terms, however, is adapting the foreign words to the context and incorporating them into the Estonian sentences.Ordinarily mistakes occur in the usage of two forms -the basic form in the nominative case and the adverbial in the ablative -in the proper context.
Th e most common errors in Juridica were misprints: It must be pointed out that such mistakes were typical of the fi rst issues and fi rst years of the Juridica journal.During recent years, serious errors can no longer be found.Avoiding mistakes and controlling Latin and other foreign terms is particularly important, because the journal Juridica is also used as study material.Incorrect grammatical forms, especially in an article of a professor, can be misleading to the students.For example, the term strictu sensu -with the wrong grammatical ending -fi rst appeared in an article by a professor and later in the article of one student. 10

Conclusion
Th e research on the usage of Latin terms and phrases in the journal Juridica has proved to be useful and practical in many ways.It was proven that even today the Latin language has a certain and fi rm position in legal writing and terminology.Th e usage of Latin over 4000 times and more than 700 diff erent Latin expressions is a remarkable result, which confi rms that the compilation of the "Latin-Estonian Legal Dictionary" was far from unnecessary.
Th e history of a language is nothing less than the history of a culture.Although we cannot use Latin today as extensively as in past centuries, it still helps us to understand better the meaning of legal concepts and use the terminology adequately.
and phrases through the years According to the graph, there are two major falls in the rising line -in the years 1997 and 2000 4 . 8

TABLE 1 :
Terms in issues

TABLE 2 :
Terms and phrases through the years