Influence of Latin and Greek on English

1. Influence of Greek difficult to separate from that of Latin; it is not very useful to do so. Many
Greek words have come into English through their Latinized forms
2. Latin has influenced both the Vocabulary and Style of English
3. Latin has entered the vocabulary in 3 main ways:
i. Direct borrowing or loan words
ii. Literal translations, especially into Old English
iii. Derivation
a) By affixation (type of Word Formation)
b) Mediation through French, which, as a Romance language, is itself derived from
Latin
4. The earliest written records of Old English are from 700 AD. The history of the language, and the
influence thereon of Greek and Latin, goes further back
5. LATIN was spoken and written in England since the O.E. (Anglo-Saxon) period
6. Roman, Pre- Christian Period: England was a province of the Roman Empire since 43 to 409 AD
(The first Roman campaigns had begun in 54 BC) and was inhabited by Britons. The Germanic
tribes Angles, Saxons and Jutes began to arrive in about 450 AD. They too brought some Latin
words. It is their language (including various dialects) that developed into Old English.
7. Loan words from the Roman period relate mostly to trade and commerce, military and
governmental organization, wine, wine making and wine drinking (wine was an important trade
item):
8. Examples:
wine from Latin vinum
street (<O.E straet < L. (via)strata = paved road)
mill, cheese, cheap (originally meaning ‘price’, ‘bargain’), monger, mint, pound, mile,
cook, kitchen, pear, plum
The place names Chester, -caster, -cester from L. castra=camp, garrison
9. England was Christianized in about 600 AD. Christian missionaries from Rome and Ireland were
active in England in the 7thc AD. Christianity introduced a set of new words and ideas.
Examples:
Church (originally from Greek)
apostle, disciple, bishop, priest, monk, nun, abbot, shrine, mass, minster,
 Many of these were originally derived from Greek but entered Old English in their Latin form
and underwent sound change.
 O.E. ‘offrian’ is from Latin, while modern English ‘offering’ is from French
10. The Benedictine Revival in the 10th c. revitalized church life and created a culture of Latin
learning and translation from, and commentary on, Latin writing in Old English. The great prose
writer Aelfric wrote at this time. The Latin words that came into Old English at this time were
mostly of technical, abstract and scientific nature and have not survived into modern English
11. In the Later Old English period many words were formed by way of literal translation from Latin
compounds. (The English language would lose this resourcefulness later.)
Example: Gospel from Old English Gōdspell from Latin Euangelium (itself from Greek) meaning
‘good news’ (gōd=good, spell=news)
12. During the Middle Ages, following the Norman Conquest, French was the dominant influence on
English language and culture. French paved the way for Latin words and the influences of Latin
and French at this time cannot be directly separated.
Examples (from Latin or French):
grave, gravity, consolation, solid, infidel, infernal, position
* Some technical, scientific and ecclesiastical words came directly from Latin:
Examples:
pauper, proviso, equivalent, legitimate, index, scribe, simile, memento, requiem,
collect, diocese, mediator
13. Modern English period can be said to begin from the reign of Henry VIII. The Renaissance
arrived in England in the 14th century. In the 15th century there was a vogue for translations from
Latin. (The word ‘tolerance’ comes from this time) The Renaissance instituted a revival of
Classical learning. The Renaissance meant a rediscovery of Classical Latin (the language of
Cicero, Seneca, and other writers of Roman Antiquity) as opposed to Medieval Latin (including
‘vulgar’ or common Latin). Greek, on the other hand, was very much a fresh discovery.
Examples:
item, ponder, premises, climax (Greek)
14. Some Latin loans changed their meaning: Enormous (big) is from Latin ‘enormis’ (=irregular)
15. During the Renaissance there was an attempt to remodel certain English words to make them
resemble Latin rather than French roots.
Example:
descrive (Fr) > describe (L)
prefet > perfect
verdit > verdict
avis > advice
aventure > adventure
dette > debt
Fench ‘peynture’ to Latinate ‘picture’
16. The word ‘critic’, originally Greek (kritikos) came into English at this time either from French or
from Latin
17. Latin has contributed to English Morphology or Word-Formation. From the 16th to the 18th
centuries scientific and philosophical works were usually written in Latin. Modern science too
uses Latin (and Greek) nomenclature.
18. Affixation: Prepositional Prefixes to form Compounds: ex-, anti-, co-,pre-,pro-,re-, inter-
(The word ‘international’ was coined by Bentham in 1780)
19. Suffixes: -ism , -ist, -ation,-al, -ate, -ic, (education, educate, educationist, elastic, abysmal)
20. Some of these are Hybrid formations where the main word comes from a root other than Latin,
most commonly English.
Example:
starvation
witticism
talkative
 21. Till the 18th century knowledge of Latin was common. Hence, the Latinate styles of writers like
Sir Thomas Browne, John Milton and Dr Samuel Johnson would have seemed less unnatural, un-
English, to their contemporaries than they do to us.
22. The earliest descriptions of English grammar and prosody were based on Latin models. This has
led to much confusion and inconvenience since the natural rhythm, grammar and idiom of
English are very different from those of Latin and Greek.
23. General Influence: While Latin has enriched the vocabulary, it has not affected the natural
structure of English very much. Also, following the influences of French and Latin, English has
gradually lost the power to make new words out of its own existing native stock, which Old
English had, and such attempts would seem unnatural today.

Influence of Greek
1. Neither easy nor very useful to separate Greek influence from Latin. Most Greek words have
come from Latin or Latinized forms.
2. Greek words have come mainly from technical, scientific and learned usage.
3. Certain Greek elements have become acclimatized in English: e.g. graph, phone, from which
telephone, phonograph etc.
4. Some technical terms have become familiar: atom, chorus, cycle, acrobat, character
5. Some terms from Philosophy have become common parlance and have undergone changes in
meaning: peripatetic (peripatetikos, the school of Aristotle), phenomenal, from phenomenon
(phainimenon, ‘that which appears, apparition’)
6. Affixation: hyper-, a- (amoral), -ology (biology)
7. The Medical science uses Greek nomenclature copiously
8. Note that unlike Latin, the influence of Greek was largely occurred after the Renaissance. While
Latin was already in use, Greek was very much a new language at the time.

Recommended Books:

C.L. Wrenn: The English Language

Otto Jespersen: Growth and Structure of the English Language
A.C. Baugh: A History of the English Language (Advanced)