Law and the courts

The twenty-eighth entry is o testamento, and the translation is « the will ». It is not « the testament », which in ordinary English now belongs to scripture or to a figure of speech, as in « a testament to her patience ». In law the word survives only inside a frozen pair, « last will and testament », and that pair is a fossil of how English learned to draft. After the Norman conquest the courts worked in three languages at once, and drafters covered themselves by naming a thing twice, once with the native word and once with its French or Latin partner, so that no audience could claim to have misunderstood. The habit outlived the reason and the doublets are still standing: « goods and chattels », « lands and tenements », « breaking and entering », « acknowledge and confess ». O testamento carries none of this. It is one word, used plainly, with no ceremonial twin, and fazer testamento is simply to make a will. A reader who renders the whole English phrase as a última vontade e testamento has doubled something that was only ever doubled for reasons of history.