Why are so many legal terms latin not english?
It’s because England was conquered in about the 4th century BCE by the Romans, and the Romans imposed their legal structure upon the English. These structural and semantic changes were well in place by 1066, when William the Conquerer subdued England. Since French law also used Latin, the Roman tradition survived. Legal notions and ideas flourished in England, and Latin was used to describe them. Law students today still study English refinements of law. Much of contract law, for instance, is still practiced today as it was in 1500, as are the laws of inheritance and real estate. When English and British peoples settled in America, from 1608 on, Latin words and English concepts of law were imported to help set up colonies. The roots of the American Revolution stemmed in part from British political concepts going back to the 13th century (Magna Carta). In the U.S., an impetus to make law more easily understood, has given rise to a plain English movement, and many government forms, proce
