ENGLISH WORDS OF GREEK ORIGIN

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.

Contents

Overview

The written form of Greek words in English

Plurals

References

See also

Wiktionary

Overview

One can estimate the contribution of Greek words to English in two basic ways. One is to count the proportion of distinct words in the vocabulary (type frequency); another is to count the proportion of words in continuous text (token frequency).
To estimate type frequency, we can use a typical English dictionary of 80,000 words, corresponding very roughly to the vocabulary of an English-speaking adult. Based on this sample, about 5% of the English vocabulary comes from Greek directly, and about 25% indirectly. If modern technical and scientific coinages using Greek roots are also counted, the percentage increases. Conversely, if token frequency in typical running text is used, the percentage decreases.
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 . 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, , either borrowed from or calqued on a Scythian word,^[1] 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 its Greek form.
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.

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 was written as 'y', as 'æ', as 'œ', as 'ph', etc. These conventions (which originally reflected differences in pronunciation) have carried over into English and other languages with historical orthography (like French, but not Italian or Spanish). They make it possible to recognize words of Greek origin, and give hints as to their pronunciation and inflection.
The Ancient Greek diphthongs and may be spelled in three different ways in English: the digraphs ''ae'' and ''oe''; the ligatures ''æ'' and ''œ''; or the simple letter ''e''. The digraphs and ligatures are uncommon in American usage, but usual in British usage. Examples include: encyclopaedia /encyclopædia / encyclopedia, haemoglobin / hæmoglobin / hemoglobin, oedema / œdema / edema, Oedipus / Œdipus / Edipus (rare). The verbal ending 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'' (good Greek word) and ''metamathematics'' (modern word 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; 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" contrast "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

★ Scheler, Manfred (1977): ''Der englische Wortschatz'' ['English vocabulary']. Berlin: Schmidt.

★ Konstantinidis, Aristidis (2006): ''Η Οικουμενική Διάσταση της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας'' ['The World-wide Range of the Greek Language'] ISBN 960-90338-2-2. Athens: self-published.
1. 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

See also

★ 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

Wiktionary