3 ms·
I guess I did assume that since there are quite a few Greek roots in English, that there was more direct influence.
by jasperry 11y ago
I guess I did assume that since there are quite a few Greek roots in English, that there was more direct influence.
- DonaldFisk 11y agoNo, you have to look at the core vocabulary. For example, most English words are derived from Latin (often through French), but all its core vocabulary (except for one or two words such as "very") is Germanic. So English is a Germanic language. Its earliest written form is Anglo-Saxon, the language of King Alfred. Greek words in English are rarer, and are generally not core vocabulary, e.g. "telescope", "bacteria", "paragraph", "angel". There are Greek cognates, which found their way into both English and Greek from their common ancestor Indo-European. These are harder to recognize. Examples include ἔργον which is cognate with "work", and πέτομαι/πτερόν (I fly/wing) which are cognate with "feather".
- pavlov 11y agoIt's fun to read everyday signs in Greece without understanding the language. The words are familiar yet the meaning is lost in translation. For example, I saw a truck labelled "ethniki metafora". Pretty sure it doesn't literally mean "ethnic metaphor" though! (I think the proper translation would be "national transport".)