Assimilation of binary bacterial names in English

     Bibliogr.. description: III International Conference on MICROBIAL DIVERSITY: current situation, conservation strategy and biotechnological potential. Abstracts. Perm, Russia, 2008, p.206.

     Assimilation of generic bacterial names is manifested in the formation of plural: Borrelia- Borrelias, Brucella – Brucellae and Brucellas, Campylobacter – Campylobacters, Clostridium – Clostridia, Erysipelothrix – Erysipelothrixes, Leptospira – Leptospires, Pasteurella – Pasteurellas and Pasteruellae, Salmonella – Salmonellas and Salmonellae.

     The Google citation  index for assimilated bacterial names of the most pathogenic  bacteria as per September 3, 2008 was as follows:

Scientific, Latin names/Assimilated names in English

Shigella dysenteriae/Shigella dysentery, 8,800
Bacillus anthraces/Bacillus anthraces, 1,060
Mycobacterium avium/Mycobacterium avian, 1,270
Helicobacter pylori/Helicobacter pyloric, 924
Treponema pallidum/Treponema pallid, 512
Mycobacterium  tuberculosis/Mycobacterium tuberculous, 623
Mycobacterium bovis/Mycobacterium bovine, 86
Corynebacterium diphtheriae/Corynebacterium diphtheritic, 58
Neisseria  gonorrhoeae/Neisseria gonorrheal, 38
Clostridium  tetani/Clostridium  tetanic, 35
Listeria monocytogenes/Listeria monocytogenic, 6

     In English, the sampling of 750 species with  medical and sanitary epidemiological significance, 395 specific epithets are found assimilatd, including surnames and     geographical names, i. e. 53%. In Russian, the same sampling showed assimilation of only 315 epithets, i. e. 42%.  There is a certain chance that        the assimilated  words will oust transliterated ones that debase a language. It  seems to us that spontaneous assimilation of binary bacterial names is         an  indisputable index of Latin names popularization in any country.

                References

1. Rosen S., Ter-Kazarian M. Aid for interpretation of binary bacterial names in official languages of subtropical and  contiguous states. Ed.-in-Chief J.Euzeby. Moscow-Eilat, 2003.
2. Ter-Kazarian S.Sh., Romanovskaya V.A. A draft list of Russian bacterial names of sanitary and epidemiological control (In Russ.). Ukrainian Medical Journal, 2006, v. 65, N3, p. 69-77.
3. Ter-Kazarian S.Sh, Gorban’ V.V., Stepanov E.N. Specific attributive components of binomial nomenclature of pathogenic bacteria in Russian (In Russ.). Mova, 2007, vol. 12, p. 209-215.
4. Ter-Kazarian S.Sh, Tsisyk A.Z. Latin-Russian dictionary of scientific bacterial names Ukrainian medical journal,  March, 2008  (electronic publication).