INTRODUCTION

This paper is an attempt to realize an analysis on the influences of Latin on legal English. To understand the Latin influences on Legal English we must understand the evolution of Legal Latin in Europe and the history of Legal English. The present paper is organized in four chapters as it follows: The first chapter takes a look into European legal systems and highlights the influences of Latin language on the vocabularies of the law. An important issue of this chapter is the importance of the Roman Law in Europe. It is a system of laws that served as model for other important legal systems and is also the gate through which Latin spread in whole Europe. This chapter also studies the ways in which Romans language left its marks on the major modern legal language on the continent and how it became the common language of the most legal systems in Europe. The second chapter analyses the development of the English legal system. From the Anglo-Saxon occupation until the Norman Conquest, legal English faced two waves of linguistic influences. One of this is the Latin language, which entered England by the means of Christianity and Roman Church. The third chapter reveals the most important traces that legal Latin left in the vocabulary and syntax of the legal English. In the third chapter I also approached the pronunciations problems that appears when terms of Latin origin are used in courtrooms or in legal documents. The problems that English lawyers with international experience face in the relation with their foreign lawyers are also presented in chapter three.

The last chapter analyses some of the most important Latin quotations that are used in legal documents or court records. Also presents some of the cases in which this terms were used.