Does the word 'Vinculation' exist?
Solution 1:
It's in the O.E.D.
vinculation: Insertion of a vincular vowel,
and
vincular: Of a vowel: connective.
This is much more specific than its meaning seems to be in Spanish or Portuguese.
Solution 2:
To supplement Peter Shor's answer, I offer the following early instances of vinculation from English texts.
From "Positivism in Theology," in The Christian Examiner (March 1866):
When Positivism shall have supplied the missing links in Comtism, and completed the chain, then it ill have accomplished that last and sublimest achievement of the human mind, still, alas! in the remote future,—the enduring vinculation of "Science and Religion.”
From Benjamin Kennedy, The Public School Latin Grammar (1871):
(11) Vinculation or insertion of a Vincular Vowel (i, u, e). ... Thus e is inserted between c-r, g-r, t-r, d-r, p-r, b-r, f-r.
From "Summary of Current Researches Relating to Zoology and Botany (Principally Invertebrata and Cryptogamia), Microscopy, &c., Including Original Communications from Fellows and Others," in Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society (October 1881):
- Vinculation-respiration. This takes place in the case of the oil of oily seeds in the early stages of germination, the absorption of oxygen not being ccompanied by any evolution of carbonic acid.
From Frank Hill, "Netherlands" (November 1, 1902), in Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries During the Year 1902 (1903):
Since the vinculation between the Postal Savings Bank of the Netherlands and Belgium is so close, I think it advisable to add the official statistics of the Belgium Government Savings Bank as transmitted to the Department of State by Consul Roosevelt, of Brussels, April 24, 1901.
These four instances arise in the context of four different disciplines: philosophy, linguistics, botany, and economics. Of the four, the one in which the largest number of subsequent instances appear is economics—and more specifically, economic regulations. For example, in William Penfield, "Oral Argument [in the case of the United States vs. the Republic of Salvador] Before the Arbitrators, Sir Henry Strong, Chief Justice of Canada, The Honorable Don M. Dickinson, of Michigan, and Dr. Rosa Pacas, of Salvador, Tuesday, April 15, 1902" (1902):
I come now to the decree of May 13, and I would invite the attention of the honorable arbitrators to the concatenation or vinculation of these events. The mind of the Government was manifested in the suit of June 14, 1898, brought by the Solicitor of the Treasury to annul and get rid of this concession.
...
I want to read it [the decree of May 13, 1899], and, with the permission of the honorable arbitrators, I want to comment upon that; but I want to establish this vinculation of the circumstances, showing the intent of the Executive Government.
The specific type of connection that each writer or speaker intended for vinculation to convey in these different settings is unclear at this historical distance, but it seems fairly clear that the word did not broadly succeed in supplanting more familiar words such as linkage, connection, and attachment as a term of art in any of these fields.
Nevertheless, vinculation continues to appear in English texts (predominantly in ones related to Latin America, and perhaps most often in contexts where the author is dealing with a Spanish or Portuguese cognate) frequently enough to register as an Ngram graph. The following chart tracks the frequency of occurrence of vinculation in English texts for the period from 1850 to 2019: