THE ROLE OF LATIN IN PHARMACOLOGY: UNIVERSAL STANDARDS IN DRUG NAMING AND THEIR ADVANTAGES

Abstract:

Latin has long served as the linguistic backbone of pharmacological nomenclature, providing a stable, universal, and conceptually precise system for naming drugs across global medical practice. This study examines the contemporary significance of Latin in pharmacology, exploring how its morphological structures—particularly roots, prefixes, and suffixes—support clarity, standardization, and cross-linguistic consistency in drug naming. Despite rapid scientific advances and the growing dominance of English in biomedical communication, Latin remains the essential scaffold that preserves semantic accuracy and prevents terminological ambiguity in pharmaceutical classification. Through a detailed linguistic and pharmacological analysis, this research identifies the principal mechanisms by which Latin contributes to international drug nomenclature. These mechanisms include conceptual unification, dosage interpretation, pharmacodynamic specification, and structural categorization. Additionally, the study evaluates the integration of Latin within established naming systems such as the International Nonproprietary Names (INN), United States Adopted Names (USAN), and European Pharmacopoeia standards, demonstrating how Latin-based morphological elements enhance global harmonization in medication labeling and regulation