From ideology to terminology: The integration of Saracen into medieval pharmacotherapeutics and botany

Abstract

Background: This article examines the historical developments and semantic unification of the term Saracen from ideology and ethnography to scientific terminology, particularly in pharmacotherapeutics and botany.

Methods: Using critical discourse analysis, historical and diachronic linguistics, within a defined historical corpus of medical and botanical texts, the study traces how the term Saracen evolved from an ethnographical identifier to a specialized term. Attention was given to the botanical species Cyperus rotundus L. (known as radix saracenica or cyperus saracenicus in medieval texts), as a case study illustrating how linguistic and ethnographical transfers shaped scientific vocabulary.

Results: The findings show that the use of the term in pharmacotherapeutics, encompassing both pharmacotherapeutic theory and practice, as well as botanical literature, reflects broader intercultural interactions between the Arabo-Islamic and European traditions, revealing persistent ideological layers embedded within modern scientific lexicons.

Conclusions: A comprehensive understanding of the term across scientific disciplines highlights the interconnectedness of linguistic, geographical, ethnographical, and historical processes, while also underscoring the need to analyze each lexical item across all fields of science. At the same time, it was necessary to analyze each discipline separately - through an examination of a word’s etymology, morphological composition, chronological and geographical occurrences, socio-political context, and the contributing socio-cultural factors to its use within the linguistics communities in which it developed.

Keywords: Saracen, Cyperus, Arab European view, etymology, history of science, pharmacotherapeutics, medicine, agricultural, botanical, linguistic.