EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Scientific names have traditionally been based on Latin or Greek roots, although more recently, roots from other names are allowed and being used, e.g., Oncorhynchus kisutch. The root Onco is Latin for hooked and rhynchus is Latin for beak, i.e., hooked beak. kisutch is a Russian word.

Detailed explanation-2: -Latin was the lingua franca of scientific work in the West during the Middle Ages, so Western scientists used Latin for naming species of organisms.

Detailed explanation-3: -Latin is useful as a scientific and technical language because it is a written rather than spoken language and is therefore immune to vocal anomalies, vowel changes, consonant variations, and colloquial modification.

Detailed explanation-4: -Because these languages are dead (no longer used for everyday conversation) they remain useful for science because the meanings of Greek and Latin words are permanently fixed and universally understood. For this reason, most scientists continue the tradition of using Greek and Latin roots for naming species.

Detailed explanation-5: -Such a name is called a binomial name (which may be shortened to just “binomial"), a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name; more informally it is also historically called a Latin name.