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Suppose I want to write a math paper in Latin. I need to translate terms such as "manifold", "holomorphic", "martingale", etc.

The Latin Wikipedia only has a limited number of terms available and many Latin dictionaries don't have these kind of technical entries.

Nevertheless there are still some Latin papers out there such as this one.

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  • Welcome and thanks for a good question! I'd be very much interested in any such dictionary, but I have been unable to find any kind of decent dictionary or word list. For what it's worth, I've also written a (soft) mathematical article in Latin but I haven't found a way to read formulas out loud yet.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta
    Jul 3, 2017 at 13:29
  • Google, dictionaries (there are some online), you can purchase books of terms in latin for a specific scientific area or you can continue to ask in this site. Jul 12, 2017 at 13:37
  • Hi there - my background's mathematics (only pre-college greek and latin so not won't be able to help you on that!), and late to this question, however for what it's worth, and forgive if stating the obvious but for standard undergraduate level terminology as such as you mention, especially if compound, suspect you'll have to deconstruct the greek-'english' etymology and reconstruct for yourself. Many concepts will be straightforward given the prevalence of both greek (homo-auto-isomorphism/orthogonal/topos, the list could go on....) and latin (convolution etc..) for that matter
    – Mehness
    Sep 23, 2018 at 16:57
  • (in-/convolution/convergence etc etc) suspect you'll have to write a lot of the dictionary yourself! Good luck if you do see this and if so would love to see the paper!
    – Mehness
    Sep 23, 2018 at 16:58
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    Wouldn't a good translation of Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy") have what you need? I would try that first. May 6, 2019 at 18:48

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For Latin terms for concepts that the Ancients (and Medievals) had no notion of, the Vatican is always a good address. There is a lexicon recentis latinitatis issued by the Libraria Editoria Vaticana, although I'm not sure if it will have highly technical terms, for which you may very likely have to coin some of the words yourself.

There is a small Italian–Latin sample online.

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    Welcome to the site and thanks for a great suggestion! Does this dictionary have a website where anyone interested could find more details or perhaps purchase a copy? Or is there even an online version?
    – Joonas Ilmavirta
    Oct 7, 2020 at 15:00
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    There seems to be only a small extract available online at vatican.va/roman_curia/institutions_connected/latinitas/… (it is the Italian/Latin version, not an English/Latin one, sorry).
    – gmvh
    Oct 7, 2020 at 15:33
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    Thanks! That's already useful. Many users here read Italian to some extent, and translating those Italian terms to English is a much easier task than coming up with the Latin translations. (I don't agree with all the choices made in that dictionary, but it's still a useful resource to have.) I edited that link into your answer.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta
    Oct 7, 2020 at 18:32

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