Law Latin

Statement

Latin tags have also had an especially persistent role in legal usage, with Law Latin being used as a term for Latin legal vocabulary as well as for a distinctive form of Latin historically employed in English legal records and instruments. Law Latin, sometimes written L.L. or L. Lat., and sometimes derisively referred to as Dog Latin, is a form of Latin used in legal contexts. Some of the vocabulary stems from English, and Law Latin may also be seen as consisting of a mixture of English, French and Latin words superimposed over an English syntax.

Law Latin was the language in which the records of English lawsuits and other causes at law (as distinguished from those at equity and in other prerogative tribunals) were recorded at least until the reign of George II. Under his reign, the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730 (effective from 1733) mandated that all records of legal proceedings in England were to be made in English rather than Latin. Law Latin was also used as the language of writs, royal charters, letters patent and many other legal instruments. As late as 1867, Law Latin was still in use in England and Scotland for some legal instruments. In South Africa, knowledge of Latin was a requirement in order to join the General Council of the Bar in order to advocate in the courts until 1988 when it was abolished.