Language development and scientific development: A case study of physics terminology creation in Persian

The article deals with the role of terminology activities in scientific progress. It seems language development is the first step to achieving development. One way of developing a language is to understand subtleties of developed languages. As physics in Iran is an established course, its terminologies have been studied diachronically, over a period of 150 years, to know whether its language is well developed. To measure language evolution some criteria are suggested: terminologization, increasing of precision, standardization, reducing of loan-words and increasing of scientific concepts in native language. The criteria are applied to the data compiled from three distinct periods of the history of the language of physics in Iran. Today’s terminologies represent an improvement in the language of physics, compared with old word-formations. This means that physics has satisfied the precondition of development.