Challenges Related to Medical Terminology

The article discusses the current state of Kazakh medical vocabulary, more specifically, its fixation in bilingual or multilingual paper or online dictionaries, as well as translation problems. This is done by overview of the translations of medical vocabulary presented in existing bilingual and multilingual (translation) printed medical dictionaries and the web-based bilingual dictionary of the Termincom.kz portal. The results of the research are as follows: First, our research identified a lack of specialized bilingual and multilingual medical dictionaries. Second, in the analyzed dictionaries, we defined several Kazakh translations for a given Russian or English medical word. Third, the source languages of most bilingual or multilingual dictionaries are Russian, English, or Latin. Finally, despite the State Terminology Committee’s approval of the term, there is a discrepancy in the use of translated terms in phrases. This phenomenon demonstrates the lengthy processes of codification, unification, and standardization of medical terms in the Kazakh terminology system. These shortcomings provide crucial insights for future research. Keywords: language policy, standardization, web-based platform, linguistic aspect, inconsistency.