6
$\begingroup$

I don't know if this should actually be asked on the English stackexchange. It seemed like I would find better answers here.

I have all but finished an undergraduate degree in mathematics in the United States, but I have never once heard the term "primitive" to mean "antiderivative" until recently, when someone from Europe pointed it out to me. According to him, it's a common term there. So I was wondering if people could give me an idea of how common this term is, and where. I know for sure that if someone says "primitive" to a math student in the US, that the student won't know what he is talking about. Does the reverse hold for "antiderivative" (or the also common "integral") elsewhere?

  • 1
    Spivak uses the term in his _Calculus_, which I think is quite popular in the US.2011-06-26
  • 0
    In Romania, from where I am from, the term primitive is used. I thought at first that the term primitive is not used in English, but as mentioned, there are books in English which use it.2011-06-26
  • 1
    I'm thinking that the standard term was "primitive", but at some point an American textbook writer invented the term "antiderivative", which has gradually become the most popular in calculus textbooks.2011-06-26
  • 0
    Re: last question. I think antiderivative is pretty self-explanatory (even if I find the word a bit ugly and unnecessarily complicated). Even if I had never heard it before, I would immediately have thought of an integral. (my native language is German and there Stammfunktion is the common term).2011-06-27
  • 0
    Here in Argentina (spanish language) the term "primitiva" is used, almost exclusively.2011-06-27
  • 0
    Here (Finland) the most common term would be the equivalent of '(indefinite) integral (function)', 'primitive' is a common alternative (followed by the Finnish equivalent of German Stammfunktion). We don't use anything resembling 'antiderivative', but I agree with Theo that such a word is self-explanatory.2011-06-27

5 Answers 5