Hello, everyone welcome to the [laing] focused channel, and my name is Paul
How did Greek?
influence English that is the question as I mentioned in my recent video on the greek language greek is a language that has
Influenced many others including English the most remarkable way that greek has influenced English is in its
[vocabulary] in my previous video I briefly mentioned that around 6% of the [vocabulary] of English is of Greek origin
But that some estimates reach as high as 12 or 15 percent this depends on how you measure it
You can measure type frequency the percentage of the total number [of] words with no regard for how often they're used
Or you can measure token frequency meaning the proportion of words in a given speech or text
So words that are more frequently used count for a larger proportion
There's a huge number of words of Greek origin that are used in
Specialized areas of the sciences medicine and technology that aren't used very often in regular speech
so if we measure type
Frequency the percentage of Greek words will be higher because less common words are given [equal] weight if we measure token
Frequency the percentage will be lower because less common words are counted less
I believe [that] the figure of 6% is based on token frequency and the higher figures are based on type
Frequency some greek words were borrowed directly from Greek into [English]
some of these were borrowed early in the history of English like church from the Greek word [Judea] cone which entered old English as
[Kielce] and some were borrowed later in the early Modern English period for example
autonomy this word entered English directly from ancient Greek autonomia in the 1620s
But a larger number of Greek words entered English indirectly through latin or through latin than French for example
[museum] this comes from the Latin word
Moose am meaning library or studied and that comes from the ancient Greek word Mu say on which meant place of study
library Museum, or
School of art or poetry and if we go back even further to the original meaning of the ancient Greek word it meant the seat
Or shrine of the muses the nine muses were the daughters [of] Zeus the Missoni
They were goddesses who symbolized the arts and [sciences]
Another example the word olive entered the English language around the 12th century [ce] II either from old French
Believes or directly from Latin Oliva or Oliwa which in turn comes from the Greek word?
[Li] [Hua] the word Chaos comes from the Greek word cows and entered English in the 14th century
[Via] Latin then French
Catastrophe entered English in the 1530s from Latin
catastrophe from the Greek Word
Catastrophe which was originally pronounced as catastrophe meaning an overturning or a sudden end the word democracy
entered English in the 1570s it came from the Middle French word Democracy which in turn came from medieval latin
democracia which came from ancient Greek democracia
the word paragraph entered English in the late 1400s Via medieval latin and French and it comes from the Greek word
pellagra sauce which was originally pronounced as para La Paz and
There are many more words like this the largest number of Greek words to enter English were actually newly created words
They were newly created using Greek morphemes
But their words that hadn't existed in Greek before that point and then those words were borrowed from latin into English some are formed from
Only [Greek] morphemes for example photography this word was created in
1834 by Combining photo which meant light in ancient Greek and the ancient Greek Suffix
groffle meaning to scratch or to scrape
But later meaning to write and if you're wondering how those different meanings are related to scrape and to write well think about how people
Used to write thousands of years ago
They [used] to scrape letters into stone tablets another word xenophobia or xenophobia this word was created in 1903
from the [Greek] Root [Hinault's] meaning Alien and phobia meaning fear
Other words were formed from a combination of both Greek [and] latin morphemes for example television
This word was created from the Greek Morpheme [t]
[lay] meaning far or at a distance and the French word visual meaning sight this word entered English Via
another example
Automobile the first part comes from ancient Greek autos meaning self and the second part comes from the French word
[mobile] which means moving which came from Latin mobile is [moveable]?
Sociology the first part comes from the Latin word so sheís meaning comrade and the second part comes from the Greek morpheme Logia
Meaning discourse now just have a look at the morphemes that are highlighted. [you've] probably seen many more words that feature these same greek morphemes
There are lots of common greek roots in English for example [an] throat meaning man
Prone or [Chron] meaning time them meaning people pet meaning child
There are also many greek affixes app or n meaning without by or bio meaning life or living thing hyper
Meaning excessive micro meaning small geo meaning Earth or geography entry meaning against [it]
Suffix that forms adjectives and many more [a]
huge number of these newly coined words exist in areas of Academia
medicine science and technology because the huge
Advancements in these areas over the past 500 years required the creation of lots of new vocabulary in the field of medicine for example
latin words both old and new be coined ones were often used for [anatomy] while greek words were used for the names of illnesses or
specializations [a]
Lot of these specialized words are not used in Daily conversation very often
But without them it would be very difficult to talk about these advanced fields of study
It's also worth noting that these words are not
Exclusive to English a lot of them are used in other
Languages as [well] when talking about those fields of study here are a couple of hints on how to recognize greek
Vocabulary most words starting with Ph are greek
Some vowel spelling's give us a hint like ae or o eat together
if you see a y between consonants
It's likely a greek word if a word starts with any of these consonant clusters, then it's almost certainly a word of Greek origin
Some of these clusters can't be pronounced in English like Ps, or Pn or gn?
So the first letter is dropped in pronunciation an interesting example
back in the
1950s [professor] [Extendo] [phones] alou toss a greek economist and the 75th prime minister of Greece gave two speeches
In which he addressed the audience in English
But using exclusively words of Greek origin with the exception of grammar words like articles prepositions and conjunctions
[all] of the content words were in Greek here is a piece of one of those speeches which he gave to [the]
International Bank for reconstruction and development
It is zeus's anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic
methods and policies that we should agonize between the scylla of
Numismatic plethora, and the Charybdis of economic anemia it is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic
But my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather Crypto plethora
see although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora energize it through their tactics and practices our
Policies have [to] be based more [on] economic and less on political Criteria now
Let's break that down a little bit the first part it is zeus's anathema on our epoch this means
It is zeus's curse or punishment on our time or era in a typical English sentence
You might expect to see God in this context instead of zeus for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic
methods and policies here he's saying that zeus is punishment is for the
uncontrolled activity of our economies and our economic heresy meaning
violating accepted economic ideas and next he'll explain what the punishment is that we should agonize between the scylla of
numismatic plethora
And the Charybdis of economic anemia now these two words here scylla and Charybdis
[these] are actually characters from Greek Mythology
[they] are two mythical sea monsters two dangerous monsters that [it's] difficult to navigate between
because if you move away from one you move toward the other
Their names here are indicating [two] dangerous situations. So the first of those two dangerous situations is numismatic plethora
Numismatic means related to coins or currency in plethora means abundance or a lot of to these two words together mean?
inflation meaning there's too much currency in circulation, so
Increase and the second dangerous situation the Charybdis is
economic anemia anemia meaning stagnation or loss of energy
Most of the second part is probably easier to understand
But let's look at one part but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather Crypto plethora
Sk's now this word requires a look crypto means
Secrets and plethora remember that word before plethora which means abundance or a lot of and then [if]
That's an ethics showing the doer of an action so plethora sar people who create an abundance of money they create inflation
Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora although they speak badly about inflation
They energize it through their tactics and practices
He's saying that politicians are secretly creating inflation despite what they say that's just [an] excerpt
But I'll leave a link to the full version of the two speeches in the description below
now the irony of me describing that speech in standard English is that I probably used a lot of words of Greek origin myself without
Realizing it so the question [of] the day were you surprised to discover how much English vocabulary?
Comes from Greek were you surprised by any of the examples also feel free to leave additional examples in the comments down below
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