English word with greek origins

The Greek language has contributed to the English lexicon in five main ways:

• vernacular borrowings, transmitted orally through Vulgar Latin directly into Old English, e.g., ‘butter’ (butere, from Latin butyrum < βούτυρον), or through French, e.g., ‘ochre’;
• learned borrowings from classical Greek texts, often via Latin, e.g., ‘physics’ (< Latin physica < τὰ φυσικά);
• a few borrowings transmitted through other languages, notably Arabic scientific and philosophical writing, e.g., ‘alchemy’ (< χημεία);
• direct borrowings from Modern Greek, e.g., ‘ouzo’ (ούζο);
• neologisms (coinages) in post-classical Latin or modern languages using classical Greek roots, e.g., ‘telephone’ (< τῆλε + φωνή) or a mixture of Greek and other roots, e.g., ‘television’ (< Greek τῆλε + English vision < Latin visio); these are often shared among the modern European languages, including Modern Greek.

Of these, the neologisms are by far the most numerous.

Indirect and direct borrowings[edit]

Since the living Greek and English languages were not in direct contact until modern times, borrowings were necessarily indirect, coming either through Latin (through texts or through French and other vernaculars), or from Ancient Greek texts, not the living spoken language.^[5][6]

Vernacular borrowings[edit]

Romance languages[edit]

Some Greek words were borrowed into Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages. English often received these words from French. Some have remained very close to the Greek original, e.g., lamp (Latin lampas; Greek λαμπάς). In others, the phonetic and orthographic form has changed considerably. For instance, place was borrowed both by Old English and by French from Latin platea, itself borrowed from πλατεία (ὁδός), ‘broad (street)’; the Italian piazza and Spanish plaza have the same origin, and have been borrowed into English in parallel.

The word olive comes through the Romance from the Latin olīva, which in turn comes from the archaic Greek elaíwā (ἐλαίϝᾱ).^[7] A later Greek word, boútȳron (βούτυρον),^[8] becomes Latin butyrum and eventually English butter. A large group of early borrowings, again transmitted first through Latin, then through various vernaculars, comes from Christian vocabulary:

• chair << καθέδρα (cf. ‘cathedra’);
• bishop << epískopos (ἐπίσκοπος ‘overseer’);
• priest << presbýteros (πρεσβύτερος ‘elder’); and

In some cases, the orthography of these words was later changed to reflect the Greek—and Latin—spelling: e.g., quire was respelled as choir in the 17th century. Sometimes this was done incorrectly: ache is from a Germanic root; the spelling ache reflects Samuel Johnson’s incorrect etymology from ἄχος.^[9]

Other[edit]

Exceptionally, church came into Old English as cirice, circe via a West Germanic language. The Greek form was probably kȳriakḗ [oikía] (κυριακή [οἰκία] ‘lord’s [house]’). In contrast, the Romance languages generally used the Latin words ecclēsia or basilica, both borrowed from Greek.

Learned borrowings[edit]

Many more words were borrowed by scholars writing in Medieval and Renaissance Latin. Some words were borrowed in essentially their original meaning, often transmitted through Classical Latin: topic, type, physics, iambic, eta, necromancy, cosmopolite. A few result from scribal errors: encyclopedia < ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία ‘the circle of learning’ (not a compound in Greek); acne < ἀκνή (erroneous) < ἀκμή ‘high point, acme’. Some kept their Latin form, e.g., podium < πόδιον.

Others were borrowed unchanged as technical terms, but with specific, novel meanings:

• telescope < τηλεσκόπος ‘far-seeing’, refers to an optical instrument for seeing far away rather than a person who can see far into the distance;
• phlogiston < φλογιστόν ‘burnt thing’, is a supposed fire-making potential rather than something which has been burned, or can be burned; and
• bacterium < βακτήριον ‘stick (diminutive)’, is a kind of microorganism rather than a small stick or staff.

Usage in neologisms[edit]

But by far the largest Greek contribution to English vocabulary is the huge number of scientific, medical, and technical neologisms that have been coined by compounding Greek roots and affixes to produce novel words which never existed in the Greek language:

• utopia (1516; οὐ ‘not’ + τόπος ‘place’)^[10]
• zoology (1669; ζῷον + λογία)
• hydrodynamics (1738; ὕδωρ + δυναμικός)
• photography (1834; φῶς + γραφικός)
• oocyte (1895; ᾠόν + κύτος)
• helicobacter (1989; ἕλιξ + βακτήριον)

So it is really the combining forms of Greek roots and affixes that are borrowed, not the words. Neologisms using these elements are coined in all the European languages, and spread to the others freely—including to Modern Greek, where they are considered to be reborrowings. Traditionally, these coinages were constructed using only Greek morphemes, e.g., metamathematics, but increasingly, Greek, Latin, and other morphemes are combined. These hybrid words were formerly considered to be ‘barbarisms’, such as:

• television (τῆλε + Latin vision);
• metalinguistic (μετά + Latin lingua + -ιστής + -ικος); and
• garbology (English garbage + -ολογία).

Some derivations are idiosyncratic, not following Greek compounding patterns, for example:^[11]

• gas (< χάος) is irregular both in formation and in spelling;
• hadron < ἁδρός with the suffix -on, itself abstracted from Greek anion (ἀνιόν);
• henotheism < ἑνό(ς) ‘one’ + θεός ‘god’, though heno- is not used as a prefix in Greek;
• taxonomy < τάξις ‘order’ + -nomy (-νομία ‘study of’), where the «more etymological form» is taxinomy,^[1][12] as found in ταξίαρχος, ‘taxiarch’, and the neologism taxidermy. Modern Greek uses ταξινομία in its reborrowing.^[13]
• psychedelic < ψυχή ‘psyche’ + δηλοῦν ‘make manifest, reveal’; the regular formation would be psychodelotic;
• telegram; the regular formation would have been telegrapheme;^[14]
• hecto-, kilo-, myria-, etymologically hecato-, chilio-, myrio-;^[15]
• heuristic, regular formation heuretic;
• chrysalis, regular spelling chrysallis;
• ptomaine, regular formation ptomatine;
• kerosene, hydrant, symbiont.

Many combining forms have specific technical meanings in neologisms, not predictable from the Greek sense:

• -cyte or cyto- < κύτος ‘container’, means biological cells, not arbitrary containers.
• -oma < -ωμα, a generic morpheme forming deverbal nouns, such as diploma (‘a folded thing’) and glaucoma (‘greyness’), comes to have the very narrow meaning of ‘tumor’ or ‘swelling’, on the model of words like carcinoma < καρκίνωμα. For example, melanoma does not come from μελάνωμα ‘blackness’, but rather from the modern combining forms melano- (‘dark’ [in biology]) + -oma (‘tumor’).
• -itis < -ῖτις, a generic adjectival suffix; in medicine used to mean a disease characterized by inflammation: appendicitis, conjunctivitis, …, and now facetiously generalized to mean «feverish excitement».^[16]
• -osis < -ωσις, originally a state, condition, or process; in medicine, used for a disease.^[16]

In standard chemical nomenclature, the numerical prefixes are «only loosely based on the corresponding Greek words», e.g. octaconta- is used for 80 instead of the Greek ogdoeconta- ’80’. There are also «mixtures of Greek and Latin roots», e.g., nonaconta-, for 90, is a blend of the Latin nona- for 9 and the Greek -conta- found in words such as ἐνενήκοντα enenekonta ’90’.^[17] The Greek form is, however, used in the names of polygons in mathematics, though the names of polyhedra are more idiosyncratic.

Many Greek affixes such as anti- and -ic have become productive in English, combining with arbitrary English words: antichoice, Fascistic.

Some words in English have been reanalyzed as a base plus suffix, leading to suffixes based on Greek words, but which are not suffixes in Greek (cf. libfix). Their meaning relates to the full word they were shortened from, not the Greek meaning:

• -athon or -a-thon (from the portmanteau word walkathon, from walk + (mar)athon).
• -ase, used in chemistry for enzymes, is abstracted from diastase, where —ασις is not a morpheme at all in Greek.
• -on for elementary particles, from electron: lepton, neutron, phonon, …
• -nomics refers specifically to economics: Reaganomics.

Through other languages[edit]

Some Greek words were borrowed through Arabic and then Romance. Many are learned:

• alchemy (al- + χημεία or χημία)
  • chemist is a back-formation from alchemist
• elixir (al- + ξήριον)
• alembic (al- + ἄμβιξ)

Others are popular:

• bottarga (ᾠοτάριχον)
• tajine (τάγηνον)
• carat (κεράτιον)
• talisman (τέλεσμα)
• possibly quintal (κεντηνάριον < Latin centenarium (pondus)).

A few words took other routes:^[18]

• seine (a kind of fishing net) comes from a West Germanic form *sagīna, from Latin sagēna, from σαγήνη.
• effendi comes from Turkish, borrowed from Medieval Greek αυθέντης (/afˈθendis/, ‘lord’).
• hora (the dance) comes from Romanian and Modern Hebrew, borrowed from χορός ‘dance’.

Vernacular or learned doublets[edit]

Some Greek words have given rise to etymological doublets, being borrowed both through a later learned, direct route, and earlier through an organic, indirect route:^[19][20]

Other doublets come from differentiation in the borrowing languages:

From modern Greek[edit]

Finally, with the growth of tourism and emigration, some words reflecting modern Greek culture have been borrowed into English—many of them originally borrowings into Greek themselves:

Greek as an intermediary[edit]

Many words from the Hebrew Bible were transmitted to the western languages through the Greek of the Septuagint, often without morphological regularization:

• rabbi (ραββί)
• seraphim (σεραφείμ, σεραφίμ)
• paradise (παράδεισος < Hebrew < Persian)
• pharaoh (Φαραώ < Hebrew < Egyptian)

Written form of Greek words in English[edit]

Many Greek words, especially those borrowed through the literary tradition, are recognizable as such from their spelling. Latin had standard orthographies for Greek borrowings, including, but not limited to:

• Greek υ was written as ‘y’
• η as ‘e’
• χ as ‘ch’
• φ as ‘ph’
• κ as ‘c’
• rough breathings as ‘h’
• both ι and ει as ‘i’

These conventions, which originally reflected pronunciation, have carried over into English and other languages with historical orthography, like French.^[22] They make it possible to recognize words of Greek origin, and give hints as to their pronunciation and inflection.

The romanization of some digraphs is rendered in various ways in English. The diphthongs αι and οι may be spelled in three different ways in English:

1. the Latinate digraphs ae and oe;
2. the ligatures æ and œ; and
3. the simple letter e.

The ligatures have largely fallen out of use worldwide; the digraphs are uncommon in American usage, but remain common in British usage. The spelling depends mostly on the variety of English, not on the particular word. Examples include: encyclopaedia / encyclopædia / encyclopedia; haemoglobin / hæmoglobin / hemoglobin; and oedema / œdema / edema. Some words are almost always written with the digraph or ligature: amoeba / amœba, rarely ameba; Oedipus / Œdipus, rarely Edipus; others are almost always written with the single letter: sphære and hæresie were obsolete by 1700; phænomenon by 1800; phænotype and phænol by 1930. The verbal ending -ίζω is spelled -ize in American English, and -ise or -ize in British English.

Since the 19th century, a few learned words were introduced using a direct transliteration of Ancient Greek and including the Greek endings, rather than the traditional Latin-based spelling: nous (νοῦς), koine (κοινή), hoi polloi (οἱ πολλοί), kudos (κύδος), moron (μωρόν), kubernetes (κυβερνήτης). For this reason, the Ancient Greek digraph ει is rendered differently in different words—as i, following the standard Latin form: idol < εἴδωλον; or as ei, transliterating the Greek directly: eidetic (< εἰδητικός), deixis, seismic. Most plurals of words ending in -is are -es (pronounced [iːz]), using the regular Latin plural rather than the Greek -εις: crises, analyses, bases, with only a few didactic words having English plurals in -eis: poleis, necropoleis, and acropoleis (though acropolises is by far the most common English plural).

Most learned borrowings and coinages follow the Latin system, but there are some irregularities:

• eureka (cf. heuristic);
• kaleidoscope (the regular spelling would be calidoscope^[6])
• kinetic (cf. cinematography);
• krypton (cf. cryptic);
• acolyte (< ἀκόλουθος; acoluth would be the etymological spelling, but acolythus, acolotus, acolithus are all found in Latin);^[23]
• stoichiometry (< στοιχεῖον; regular spelling would be st(o)echio-).
• aneurysm was formerly often spelled aneurism on the assumption that it uses the usual -ism ending.

Some words whose spelling in French and Middle English did not reflect their Greco-Latin origins were refashioned with etymological spellings in the 16th and 17th centuries: caracter became character and quire became choir.

In some cases, a word’s spelling clearly shows its Greek origin:

• If it includes ph pronounced as /f/ or y between consonants, it is very likely Greek, with some exceptions, such as nephew, cipher, triumph.^[24]
• If it includes rrh, phth, or chth; or starts with hy-, ps-, pn-, or chr-; or the rarer pt-, ct-, chth-, rh-, x-, sth-, mn-, tm-, gn- or bd-, then it is Greek, with some exceptions: gnat, gnaw, gneiss.

Other exceptions include:

• ptarmigan is from a Gaelic word, the p having been added by false etymology;
• style is probably written with a ‘y’ because the Greek word στῦλος ‘column’ (as in peristyle, ‘surrounded by columns’) and the Latin word stilus, ‘stake, pointed instrument’, were confused.
• trophy, though ultimately of Greek origin, did not have a φ but a π in its Greek form, τρόπαιον.

Pronunciation[edit]

In clusters such as ps-, pn-, and gn- which are not allowed by English phonotactics, the usual English pronunciation drops the first consonant (e.g., psychology) at the start of a word; compare gnostic [nɒstɪk] and agnostic [ægnɒstɪk]; there are a few exceptions: tmesis [t(ə)miːsɪs].

Initial x- is pronounced z. Ch is pronounced like k rather than as in «church»: e.g., character, chaos. The consecutive vowel letters ‘ea’ are generally pronounced separately rather than forming a single vowel sound when transcribing a Greek εα, which was not a digraph, but simply a sequence of two vowels with hiatus, as in genealogy or pancreas (cf., however, ocean, ωκεανός); zeal (earlier zele) comes irregularly from the η in ζήλος.

Some sound sequences in English are only found in borrowings from Greek, notably initial sequences of two fricatives, as in sphere.^[25] Most initial /z/ sounds are found in Greek borrowings.^[25]

The stress on borrowings via Latin which keep their Latin form generally follows the traditional English pronunciation of Latin, which depends on the syllable structure in Latin, not in Greek. For example, in Greek, both ὑπόθεσις (hypothesis) and ἐξήγησις (exegesis) are accented on the antepenult, and indeed the penult has a long vowel in exegesis; but because the penult of Latin exegēsis is heavy by Latin rules, the accent falls on the penult in Latin and therefore in English.

Inflectional endings and plurals[edit]

Though many English words derived from Greek through the literary route drop the inflectional endings (tripod, zoology, pentagon) or use Latin endings (papyrus, mausoleum), some preserve the Greek endings:

• -ον: phenomenon, criterion, neuron, lexicon;
• —∅: plasma, drama, dilemma, trauma (-ma is derivational, not inflectional);
• -ος: chaos, ethos, asbestos, pathos, cosmos;
• -ς: climax (ξ x = k + s), helix, larynx, eros, pancreas, atlas;
• -η: catastrophe, agape, psyche;
• -ις: analysis, basis, crisis, emphasis;
• -ης: diabetes, herpes, isosceles.

In cases like scene, zone, fame, though the Greek words ended in -η, the silent English e is not derived from it.

In the case of Greek endings, the plurals sometimes follow the Greek rules: phenomenon, phenomena; tetrahedron, tetrahedra; crisis, crises; hypothesis, hypotheses; polis, poleis; stigma, stigmata; topos, topoi; cyclops, cyclopes; but often do not: colon, colons not *cola (except for the very rare technical term of rhetoric); pentathlon, pentathlons not *pentathla; demon, demons not *demones; climaxes, not *climaces.

Usage is mixed in some cases: schema, schemas or schemata; lexicon, lexicons or lexica; helix, helixes or helices; sphinx, sphinges or sphinxes; clitoris, clitorises or clitorides. And there are misleading cases: pentagon comes from Greek pentagonon, so its plural cannot be *pentaga; it is pentagons—the Greek form would be *pentagona (cf. Plurals from Latin and Greek).

Verbs[edit]

A few dozen English verbs are derived from the corresponding Greek verbs; examples are baptize, blame and blaspheme, stigmatize, ostracize, and cauterize. In addition, the Greek verbal suffix -ize is productive in Latin, the Romance languages, and English: words like metabolize, though composed of a Greek root and a Greek suffix, are modern compounds. A few of these also existed in Ancient Greek, such as crystallize, characterize, and democratize, but were probably coined independently in modern languages. This is particularly clear in cases like allegorize and synergize, where the Greek verbs ἀλληγορεῖν and συνεργεῖν do not end in -ize at all. Some English verbs with ultimate Greek etymologies, like pause and cycle, were formed as denominal verbs in English, even though there are corresponding Greek verbs, παῦειν/παυσ- and κυκλεῖν.

Borrowings and cognates[edit]

Greek and English share many Indo-European cognates. In some cases, the cognates can be confused with borrowings. For example, the English mouse is cognate with Greek μῦς /mys/ and Latin mūs, all from an Indo-European word *mūs; they are not borrowings. Similarly, acre is cognate to Latin ager and Greek αγρός, but not a borrowing; the prefix agro- is a borrowing from Greek, and the prefix agri- a borrowing from Latin.

Phrases[edit]

Many Latin phrases are used verbatim in English texts—et cetera (etc.), ad nauseam, modus operandi (M.O.), ad hoc, in flagrante delicto, mea culpa, and so on—but this is rarer for Greek phrases or expressions:

• hoi polloi ‘the many’
• eureka ‘I have found [it]’
• kalos kagathos ‘beautiful and virtuous’
• hapax legomenon ‘once said’
• kyrie eleison ‘Lord, have mercy’

Calques and translations[edit]

Greek technical terminology was often calqued in Latin rather than borrowed,^[26][27] and then borrowed from Latin into English. Examples include:^[26]

• (grammatical) case, from casus (‘an event’, something that has fallen’), a semantic calque of Greek πτώσις (‘a fall’);
• nominative, from nōminātīvus, a translation of Greek ὀνομαστική;
• adverb, a morphological calque of Greek ἐπίρρημα as ad- + verbum;
• magnanimous, from Greek μεγάθυμος (lit. ‘great spirit’);
• essence, from essentia, which was constructed from the notional present participle *essens, imitating Greek οὐσία.^[28]
• Substance, from substantia, a calque of Greek υπόστασις (cf. hypostasis);^[29]
• Cicero coined moral on analogy with Greek ηθικός.^[30]
• Recant is modeled on παλινῳδεῖν.^[31]

Greek phrases were also calqued in Latin, then borrowed or translated into English:

• English commonplace is a calque of locus communis, itself a calque of Greek κοινός τόπος.
• deus ex machina ‘god out of the machine’ was calqued from the Greek apò mēkhanês theós (ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός).
• materia medica is a short form of Dioscorides‘ De Materia Medica, from Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς.
• quod erat demonstrandum (Q.E.D.) is a calque of ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι.
• subject matter is a calque of subiecta māteria, itself a calque of Aristotle’s phrase «ἡ ὑποκειμένη ὕλη.»
• wisdom tooth came to English from dentes sapientiae, from Arabic aḍrāsu ‘lḥikmi, from σωϕρονιστῆρες, used by Hippocrates.
• political animal is from πολιτικὸν ζῷον (in Aristotle’s Politics).
• quintessence is post-classical quinta essentia, from Greek πέμπτη οὐσία.

The Greek word εὐαγγέλιον has come into English both in borrowed forms like evangelical and the form gospel, an English calque (Old English gód spel ‘good tidings’) of bona adnuntiatio, itself a calque of the Greek.

Statistics[edit]

The contribution of Greek to the English vocabulary can be quantified in two ways, type and token frequencies: type frequency is the proportion of distinct words; token frequency is the proportion of words in actual texts.

Since most words of Greek origin are specialized technical and scientific coinages, the type frequency is considerably higher than the token frequency. And the type frequency in a large word list will be larger than that in a small word list. In a typical English dictionary of 80,000 words, which corresponds very roughly to the vocabulary of an educated English speaker, about 5% of the words are borrowed from Greek.^[32]

Most common[edit]

Of the 500 most common words in English, 18 (3.6%) are of Greek origin: place (rank 115), problem (121), school (147), system (180), program (241), idea (252), story (307), base (328), center (335), period (383), history (386), type (390), music (393), political (395), policy (400), paper (426), phone (480), economic (494).^[33]

See also[edit]

• List of Greek and Latin roots in English
• List of Greek morphemes used in English
• List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names
• Transliteration of Greek into English
• Classical compound
• Hybrid word
• Latin influence in English

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

Sources[edit]

• Baugh, Albert C., Thomas Cable. 2002. A History of the English Language, 5th edition. ISBN 0415280990
• Gaidatzi, Theopoula. July 1985. «Greek loanwords in English» (M.A. thesis). University of Leeds
• Konstantinidis, Aristidis. 2006. Η Οικουμενική Διάσταση της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας [The Universal Reach of the Greek Language]. Athens: self-published. ISBN 960-90338-2-2.
• Krill, Richard M. 1990. Greek and Latin in English Today. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. ISBN 0-86516-241-7.
• March, F. A. 1893. «The Influence of the Greeks on the English Language.» The Chautauquan 16(6):660–66.
• —— 1893. «Greek in the English of Modern Science.» The Chautauquan 17(1):20–23.
• Scheler, Manfred. 1977. Der englische Wortschatz [English vocabulary]. Berlin: Schmidt.
• Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.)

External links[edit]

• Mathematical Words: Origins and Sources (John Aldrich, University of Southampton)

In English grammar, a root is a word or portion of a word from which other words grow, usually through the addition of prefixes and suffixes. By learning root words, you can decipher unfamiliar words, expand your vocabulary, and become a better English speaker. 

The Roots of Words

Most words in the English language are based on words from ancient Greek and Latin. The root of the word «vocabulary,» for example, is ​voc, a Latin root meaning «word» or «name.» This root also appears in such words as «advocacy,» «convocation,» «evocative,» «vocal,» and «vowel.» By dissecting words such as these, etymologists can study how a word has evolved over time and tell us about the cultures they came from.

In some cases, root words might be slightly transformed en route to becoming part of words that we’re familiar with. In the above example, «vowel» is a word that’s clearly related to the voc root and its family of derivative words, and yet the «c» in «voc» is not present. There are several reasons for this sort of pattern, and the changes often depend on what language each individual word comes from, but it serves as a reminder that not every word with the same root will look exactly the same.

Root words are also useful for creating new words, especially in technology and medicine, where new innovations occur frequently. Think of the Greek root word tele, which means «far,» and inventions that traverse long distances, such as the telegraph, telephone, and television. The word «technology» itself is a combination of two other Greek root words, techne, meaning «skill» or «art,» and logos, or «study.»

Because several modern languages share some of the same ancestor languages, it’s not entirely uncommon for several related languages to share root words. For instance, the Latin root voc, described above, is shared by several Romance languages. Connections between languages can be found in the shared roots between them, although one always has to be wary of false cognates — that is, words that sound like they have the same roots (and thus related meanings) but actually don’t.

Greek Root Words

The table below defines and illustrates 25 of the most common Greek roots.

Latin Root Words

The table below defines and illustrates 25 of the most common Latin roots.

​Understanding the meanings of the common word roots can help us deduce the meanings of new words that we encounter. But be careful: root words can have more than one meaning as well as various shades of meaning. In addition, words that look similar may derive from different roots.

In addition, a handful of root words can stand on their own as whole words in and of themselves. This list includes words such as photo, kinesis, chrome, port, and script. Words like this tend to have related meanings on their own, then can also act as roots for longer, more complex words.

Sources

• Bryant, Alice, and Robbins, Jill. «Grow Your Vocabulary by Learning Root Words.» VOANews.com, 28 November 2017.
• Grammarly staff. «Why You Should Learn Roots.» Grammarly.com, 6 February 2016.
• McCammon, Ellen. «50 GRE Words You Should Know.» PrepScholar.com, 8 February 2017.

The Greek language has contributed to the English vocabulary in three ways:

1. directly as an immediate donor,
2. indirectly through other intermediate language(s), as an original donor (mainly through Latin and French), and
3. modern coinages using Greek roots.

Template:Wiktionarycat
Template:Wiktionarycat

Overview[]

The contribution of Greek to the English vocabulary can be quantified in two ways, type and token frequencies: type frequency is the proportion of distinct words; token frequency is the proportion of words in actual texts.

Since most words of Greek origin are specialized technical and scientific coinages, the type frequency is considerably higher than the token frequency. And the type frequency in a large word list will be larger than that in a small word list. In a typical English dictionary of 80,000 words, which corresponds very roughly to the vocabulary of an educated English speaker, about 5% of the words are borrowed from Greek directly, and about 25% indirectly (if we count modern coinages from Greek roots as Greek).

Since the living Greek and English languages were not in direct contact until modern times, borrowings were necessarily indirect, coming either through Latin (through texts or various vernaculars), or from Ancient Greek texts, not the living language. More recently, a huge number of scientific, medical, and technical neologisms have been coined from Greek roots—and often re-borrowed back into Modern Greek.

Still, there are a few Greek words which were borrowed organically—though indirectly. The English word olive comes through the Romance from the Latin word olīva, which in turn comes from the Greek ἐλαίϝᾱ (elaíwā). This must have been an early borrowing, since the Latin v reflects a still-pronounced digamma. The Greek word was in turn apparently borrowed from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean substrate (see also Greek substrate language), although the earliest attested form of it is the Mycenaean Greek e-ra-wa (transliterated as «elava»), attested in Linear B syllabic script.^[1][2] A later Greek word, βούτυρον (bouturon), either borrowed from or calqued on a Scythian word,^[3] becomes Latin butyrum and eventually English butter. A larger group of early borrowings, again transmitted first through Latin, then through various vernaculars, comes from Christian language: bishop from ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos ‘overseer’), priest from πρεσβύ̄τερος (presbū́teros ‘elder’), and church from κῡριακόν (kȳriakón).^[4] Unlike later borrowings, which came from a written, learned tradition, olive, bishop, and so on were transmitted through vernaculars, so their English spelling does not reflect their Greek forms.

Until the 16th century, the few Greek words that were absorbed into English came through their Latin derivatives. Most of the early borrowings are for expressions in theology for which there were no English equivalents. In the late 16th century an influx of Greek words were derived directly, in intellectual fields and the new science.

In the 19th and 20th centuries a few learned words and phrases were introduced using a more or less direct transliteration of Ancient Greek (rather than the traditional Latin-based orthography) for instance nous (νοῦς), hoi polloi (οἱ πολλοί).

Finally with the growth of tourism, some words, mainly reflecting aspects of current Greek life, have been introduced with orthography reflecting Modern Greek, for instance taverna.

The written form of Greek words in English[]

Greek words borrowed through the literary tradition (not butter and bishop) are often recognizable from their spelling. Already in Latin, there were specific conventions for borrowing Greek. So Greek υ was written as ‘y’, αι as ‘æ’, οι as ‘œ’, φ as ‘ph’, etc. These conventions (which originally reflected differences in pronunciation) have carried over into English and other languages with historical orthography (like French). They make it possible to recognize words of Greek origin, and give hints as to their pronunciation and inflection.

The Ancient Greek diphthongs αι and οι may be spelled in three different ways in English: the digraphs ae and oe; the ligatures æ and œ; or the simple letter e. Both the digraphs and ligatures are uncommon in American usage, but the digraphs remain common in British usage. Examples are: encyclopaedia /encyclopædia / encyclopedia, haemoglobin / hæmoglobin / hemoglobin, oedema / œdema / edema, Oedipus / Œdipus / Edipus (rare). The verbal ending -ίζω is spelled -ize in American English and -ise or -ize in British English.

In some cases, a word’s spelling clearly shows its Greek origin. If it includes ph or includes y between consonants, it is very likely Greek. If it includes rrh, phth, or chth; or starts with hy-, ps-, pn-, or chr-; or the rarer pt-, ct-, chth-, rh-, x-, sth-, mn-, or bd-, then it is with very few exceptions Greek. One exception is ptarmigan, which is from a Gaelic word, the p having been added by false etymology.

In English, Greek prefixes and suffixes are usually attached to Greek stems, but some have become productive in English, and will combine with other stems, so we now have not only metaphor (direct borrowing from genuine ancient Greek word) and metamathematics (modern coinage using Greek roots), but also metalinguistic (Greek prefix, Latin stem).

In clusters such as ps- at the start of a word, the usual English pronunciation drops the first consonant (e.g. psychology); initial x- is pronounced z. Ch is pronounced like k rather than as in «church» (e.g. character, chaos). Consecutive vowels are often pronounced separately rather than forming a single vowel sound or one of them becoming silent (e.g. «theatre» vs. «feat»).

Plurals[]

The plurals of learned Greek-derived words sometimes follow the Greek rules: phenomenon, phenomena; tetrahedron, tetrahedra; crisis, crises; hypothesis, hypotheses; stigma, stigmata; topos, topoi; cyclops, cyclopes; but often do not: colon, colons not *cola (except for the very rare technical term of rhetoric); pentathlon, pentathlons not *pentathla; demon, demons not *demones. Usage is mixed in some cases: schema, schemas or schemata; lexicon, lexicons or lexica; clitoris, clitorises or clitorides. And there are misleading cases: pentagon comes from Greek pentagonon, so its plural cannot be *pentaga; it is pentagons (Greek πεντάγωνα/pentagona).

References[]

Sources[]

• Scheler, Manfred (1977): Der englische Wortschatz ‘English vocabulary’. Berlin: Schmidt.
• Konstantinidis, Aristidis (2006): Η Οικουμενική Διάσταση της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας ‘The Universal Reach of the Greek Language’ ISBN 960-90338-2-2. Athens: self-published.

See also[]

• List of Greek words with English derivatives
• List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names for help with Greek-derived scientific names of organisms
• Transliteration of Greek into English
• English pronunciation of Greek letters
• Classical compound
• Hybrid word
• Xenophon Zolotas
• Etymologicum Magnum

External links[]

• Mathematical Words: Origins and Sources (John Aldrich, University of Southampton) See Section on Contribution of Greek.

The Greek language has contributed to the English vocabulary in three ways:
#directly as an immediate donor,
#indirectly through other intermediate language(s), as an original donor (mainly through Latin and French), and
#with modern coinages or new Greek.

Overview

The contribution of Greek to the English vocabulary can be quantified in two ways, «type» and «token» frequencies: type frequency is the proportion of distinct words; token frequency is the proportion of words in actual texts.

Since most words of Greek origin are specialized technical and scientific coinages, the type frequency is considerably higher than the token frequency. And the type frequency in a large word list will be larger than that in a small word list. In a typical English dictionary of 80,000 words, which corresponds very roughly to the vocabulary of an educated English speaker, about 5% of the words are borrowed from Greek directly, and about 25% indirectly.

Since the living Greek and English languages were not in direct contact until modern times, borrowings were necessarily indirect, coming either through Latin (through texts or various vernaculars), or from Ancient Greek texts, not the living language. More recently, a huge number of scientific, medical, and technical neologisms have been coined from Greek roots&mdash;and often re-borrowed back into Modern Greek.

Still, there are a few Greek words which were borrowed organically&mdash;though indirectly. The English word «olive» comes through the Romance from the Latin word «olīva», which in turn comes from the Greek polytonic|ἐλαίϜα. This must have been an early borrowing, since the Latin «v» reflects a still-pronounced digamma. The Greek word was in turn apparently borrowed from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean substrate (see also Greek substrate language). A later Greek word, polytonic|βούτυρον, either borrowed from or calqued on a Scythian word, [Carl Darling Buck, «A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages» ISBN 0-226-07937-6 notes that the word has the form of a compound βοΰς+τυρός ‘cow-cheese’, possibly a calque from Scythian, or possibly an adaptation of a native Scythian word] becomes Latin «butyrum» and eventually English «butter». A larger group of early borrowings, again transmitted first through Latin, then through various vernaculars, comes from Christian language: «bishop» from «episkopos» (originally meaning just an ‘overseer’), «priest» from «presbyter», and «church» from «kyriakon». Unlike later borrowings, which came from a written, learned tradition, «olive», «bishop», and so on were transmitted through vernaculars, so their English spelling does not reflect their Greek forms.

Until the 16th century, the few Greek words that were absorbed into English came through their Latin derivatives. Most of the early borrowings are for expressions in theology for which there were no English equivalents. In the late 16th century an influx of Greek words were derived directly, in intellectual fields and the new science.

In the 19th and 20th centuries a few learned words and phrases were introduced using a more or less direct transliteration of Ancient Greek (rather than the traditional Latin-based orthography) for instance «nous», «hoi polloi».

Finally with the growth of tourism, some words, mainly reflecting aspects of current Greek life, have been introduced with orthography reflecting Modern Greek, for instance «taverna».

The written form of Greek words in English

Greek words borrowed through the literary tradition (not «butter» and «bishop») are often recognizable from their spelling. Already in Latin, there were specific conventions for borrowing Greek. So Greek polytonic|υ was written as ‘y’, polytonic|αι as ‘æ’, polytonic|οι as ‘œ’, polytonic|φ as ‘ph’, etc. These conventions (which originally reflected differences in pronunciation) have carried over into English and other languages with historical orthography (like French). They make it possible to recognize words of Greek origin, and give hints as to their pronunciation and inflection.

The Ancient Greek diphthongs polytonic|αι and polytonic|οι may be spelled in three different ways in English: the digraphs «ae» and «oe»; the ligatures «æ» and «œ»; or the simple letter «e». Both the digraphs and ligatures are uncommon in American usage, but the digraphs remain common in British usage. Examples are: encyclopaedia /encyclopædia / encyclopedia, haemoglobin / hæmoglobin / hemoglobin, oedema / œdema / edema, Oedipus / Œdipus / Edipus (rare). The verbal ending polytonic|-ιζω is spelled «-ize» in American English and «-ise» or «-ize» in British English.

In some cases, a word’s spelling clearly shows its Greek origin. If it includes «ph» or includes «y» between consonants, it is very likely Greek. If it includes «rrh», «phth», or «chth», or starts with «hy-«, «ps-«, «pn-«, or «chr-«, or the rarer «pt-«, «ct-«, «chth-«, «rh-«, «x-«, «sth-«, «mn-«, or «bd-«, then it is with very few exceptions Greek. One exception is «ptarmigan», which is from a Gaelic word, the «p» having been added by false etymology.

In English, Greek prefixes and suffixes are usually attached to Greek stems, but some have become productive in English, and will combine with other stems, so we now have not only «metaphor» (direct borrowing from genuine ancient Greek word) and «metamathematics» (modern coinage using Greek roots), but also «metalinguistic» (Greek prefix, Latin stem).

In clusters such as «ps-» at the start of a word, the usual English pronunciation drops the first consonant («e.g.» psychology); initial «x-» is pronounced «z». «Ch» is pronounced like «k» rather than as in «church» («e.g.» character, chaos). Consecutive vowels are often pronounced separately rather than forming a single vowel sound or one of them becoming silent («e.g.» «theatre» «vs.» «feat»).

Plurals

The plurals of learned Greek-derived words sometimes follow the Greek rules: «phenomenon, phenomena»; «tetrahedron, tetrahedra»; «crisis, crises»; «hypothesis, hypotheses»; «stigma, stigmata»; «topos, topoi»; but often do not: «colon, colons» not «*cola» (except for the very rare technical term of rhetoric); «pentathlon, pentathlons» not «*pentathla»; «demon, demons» not «*demones». Usage is mixed in some cases: «schema, schemas» or «schemata»; «lexicon, lexicons» or «lexica». And there are misleading cases: «pentagon» comes from Greek «pentagonon», so its plural cannot be «*pentaga»; it is «pentagons» (Greek «πεντάγωνα»/»pentagona»).

References

ources

*Scheler, Manfred (1977): «Der englische Wortschatz» [‘English vocabulary’] . Berlin: Schmidt.
*Konstantinidis, Aristidis (2006): «Η Οικουμενική Διάσταση της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας» (The Ecumenical Dimension Of The Greek Language) ISBN 960-90338-2-2. Athens: self-published.

ee also

*Hybrid word
*Classical compound
*List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names for help with Greek-derived scientific names of organisms
*List of Greek words with English derivatives
*Transliteration of Greek into English
*English pronunciation of Greek letters
*Xenophon Zolotas