Naming New Things and Concepts in Early Modern Science

Dominik Berrens examines how the vocabulary of modern science—especially the Latin and Greek technical terms used in natural history—developed across the early modern period.

He traces processes of coinage, borrowing, transliteration, and accidental adoption that produced lasting scientific terminology, showing contributions from diverse languages and social actors.

The book argues that naming was central to establishing objects and concepts as scientific subjects and that many terms arose for reasons beyond strictly scientific ones.

Drawing on case studies from botany, zoology, microscopy, and encounters with New World species, the work demonstrates how linguistic, cultural, and sometimes accidental factors shaped scientific language.

It offers the first comprehensive account of how Neo-Latin and other linguistic resources structured early modern scientific discourse.