How has Greek influenced the English language?
By Angela Karavas, English teacher
'According
to one estimate, more than 150,000 words of English are derived from Greek
words.'
How many
words derived from Greek have you used today? Let’s see why English owes
so much to the Greek language.
Antique, idol, dialogue, geography, grammar,
architect, economy, encyclopaedia, telephone, microscope... all these common English words have something
in common: they're derived from Greek. To this list, we could add thousands more
words, some common and others less so. Clearly,
the Greek language has had an important influence on the English language.
Let's take a closer look.
A very brief
history of the Greek language