There is a popular perception that words derived from Greek are long, exotic-sounding, and mostly only used in discussion of science and philosophy. It’s true that there are a lot of Greek words that fit this description. For instance, very few people would use words like otorhinolaryngology, homoousian, ataraxia, or peripeteia in casual conversation.
There are, however, a lot of really simple Greek words that people use nearly every day. Some of these words don’t sound Greek at all because they have passed through so many languages that they no longer bear any of the distinctive sounds or spellings that we normally associate with Greek words, but they are still of Greek origin.
The list
Here is a list of commonly-used words in English that don’t sound Greek, but are ultimately of Greek origin:
- The word box comes from Old English box, which comes from Late Latin buxis, which comes from earlier Latin pyxis, which comes from the Greek third-declension feminine noun πυξίς (pyxís), meaning “box.”
- The word butter comes from Old English butere, which comes from Proto-West Germanic *buterā, which comes from Latin butyrum, which comes from the Greek second-declension neuter noun βούτυρον (boútyron), a compound formed from the third-declension noun βοῦς (boûs), meaning “cow,” and the second-declension masculine noun τυρός (tyrós), meaning “cheese.” Thus, the word butter literally means “cow cheese.”
- The word chair comes from Middle English chaire, which comes from Old French chaiere, which comes from Latin cathedra, which comes from the Greek first-declension feminine noun καθέδρα (kathédra), meaning “chair.” (This same word is also the source of our word cathedral, which is a bit more obviously Greek.)
- The word church comes from the Old English word cirice, which comes from Proto-West Germanic *kirikā, which comes directly from the Greek adjective κυριακόν (kyriakón), meaning “belonging to the Lord.” This word, in turn, comes from the second-declension masculine noun κύριος (kýrios), meaning “Lord.”
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the Hagia Eirene, a Greek Orthodox church in İstanbul
- The word idea is derived from the Latin word idea, which is derived from the Greek first-declension feminine noun ἰδέα (idéa), meaning “form,” “shape,” “appearance,” “sort,” or “idea.” This word is, in turn, derived from the verb εἴδομαι (eídomai), meaning “to be seen” or “to appear.”
- The word idiot is derived from the Middle English word idiote, which is derived from the Old French word idiote, which is derived from the Latin word idiota, which is derived from the Greek first-declension masculine noun ἰδιώτης (idiṓtēs), which originally meant “a private person” or “a person not currently involved in politics.” This word is, in turn, derived from the word ἴδιος (ídios), meaning “of one’s own.” (For more information about this one, you can read this article I originally published in November 2016.)
- The word lamp, comes from Middle English lampe, which comes from Old French lampe, which comes from the Latin word lampas, which comes from the Greek third-declension feminine noun λαμπάς (lampás), meaning “torch.”
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a lamp
- The word machine comes from the Latin word machina, which comes from the word μαχανά (machaná), which is the Doric Greek form of the first-declension feminine noun better known by its Attic Greek form μηχανή (mēchanḗ), meaning “machine,” “contrivance,” or “device.”
- The word olive comes from Old French olive, which comes from Latin oliva, which comes from Etruscan 𐌄𐌋𐌄𐌉𐌅𐌀 (eleiva), which comes from ἐλαίϝα (*elaíwa), the archaic form of the Greek first-declension feminine noun ἐλαία (elaía), meaning “olive.”
- The word paper comes from Anglo-Norman paper, which comes from Old French papier, which comes from Latin papyrus, which comes from the Greek second-declension masculine noun πάπυρος (pápyros), meaning “papyrus.”
- The word person comes from Anglo-Norman persoun, which comes from Latin persona, meaning “mask” or “character portrayed by an actor.” Persona is probably derived from the Etruscan word 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 (phersu), meaning “mask.” 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 may, in turn, be derived from the Greek second-declension neuter noun πρόσωπον (prósōpon), meaning “face,” although this is uncertain.
ABOVE: Second-century AD Roman mosaic of tragic mask and a comedic mask. The word person comes from the Latin word persona, meaning “mask,” which may ultimately be derived from the Greek word πρόσωπον, meaning “face.”
- The word place comes from Old English plæce, which comes from Latin platea, which comes from πλατεῖα (plateîa), the nominative singular feminine form of the Greek adjective πλατύς (platýs), meaning “flat and wide.”
- The word plate comes from Old French plate, which comes from Medieval Latin plata, which comes from Vulgar Latin *platus, which comes from the Greek adjective πλατύς (platýs), meaning “flat and wide.”
- The word priest comes from Old English prēost, which comes Late Latin presbyter, which comes from the Koine Greek second-declension masculine noun πρεσβύτερος (presbýteros), which comes from Classical Attic Greek third-declension masculine noun πρέσβυς (présbys), meaning “old man.”
- The word problem is derived from Middle French probleme, which is derived from Latin problema, which is derived from the Greek third-declension neuter noun πρόβλημα (próblēma), meaning “hindrance,” “obstacle,” or “matter for discussion.”
- The word sack is derived from the Old English word sacc, which is derived from the Proto-West Germanic word *sakkuz, which is derived from the Latin word saccus, which is derived from the Greek second-declension masculine noun σάκκος (sákkos), which referred to a bag made of coarse cloth.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a sack
- The word school comes from Middle English scole, which comes from Old English scōl, which comes from Latin schola, which comes from the Greek first-declension feminine noun σχολή (scholḗ). This word originally meant “leisure” or “free time,” but it later came to refer to things people did in their free time, especially discussing philosophy and listening to lectures.
- The word sock comes from the Old English word socc, which comes from the Latin word soccus, which comes from the Greek second-declension masculine noun σύκχος (sýkchos), which referred to a kind of buskin shoe worn by comic actors.
- The word squirrel comes from Anglo-Norman esquirel, which comes from Old French escurel, which comes from *scuriolus, which is the vulgar diminutive form of the Latin word sciurus, which comes from the Greek second-declension masculine noun σκίουρος (skíouros), a compound formed from the word σκιά (skiá), meaning “shadow,” and the word οὐρά (ourá), meaning “tail.” Thus, the word squirrel literally means “shadow tail.”
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a squirrel. The word squirrel doesn’t sound Greek at all, but it is of Greek origin.
Hi…! another one, only because we all have one… EGO from ΕΓΩ, me, myself and I, the one and only etc… 🙂
Sometimes this monster grows to overshadow all else… experience speaking here… 😛 , :-))
Actually, the English word ego technically comes from the nominative form of the first-person singular personal pronoun in Latin, not Greek; it just so happens that the forms are identical because they are both derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *éǵh₂. In Latin, the nominative form of the first-person singular personal pronoun is ego and, in Greek, it is ἐγώ (egṓ). The terms ego and id were coined by an English translator of the writings of Sigmund Freud in the early twentieth century. Freud himself used the German pronouns ich and es for the ego and id respectively.
Therefore, since Greek predates Latin the personal antonym EGO in Latin comes from the Greek ΕΓΩ.
Now if the Greek εγω came from proto-European language is immaterial since what we are examining here is the influence of the Greek language in other Europeans languages and not the influence of other language(s) into Greek.
Linguists have found that core vocabulary words like personal pronouns are almost never borrowed from foreign languages. Furthermore, the nominative form of the first-person singular pronoun is remarkably similar across Indo-European languages and the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form is *éǵh₂. All you need to get from *éǵh₂ to ego is a shift of the Proto-Indo-European a-coloring laryngeal to a back rounded vowel, which is something that could have easily happened independently in both Latin and Greek. All of this indicates that the Greek and Latin forms are independently derived from the earlier Proto-Indo-European form.
While it is true that there are some words whose histories are ambiguous and that some proposed etymologies are poorly supported by the evidence, it is not true that “etymology is more guesswork than science.” There is a popular misconception that scholars devise etymologies based solely on which words sound similar, but there are a lot of other factors that scholars have to take into account. Etymology relies on historical sources and on findings from the field of linguistics. Most of the etymologies I have presented here are well-supported by evidence and generally uncontroversial.
Anyone who claims that academics just believe whatever they are told without thinking for themselves and that linguistics is based on nothing but superficial observations about words sounding similar clearly has no meaningful experience with academics or linguistics. Modern academia is built on the idea that all ideas should be questioned and that only claims supported by verifiable evidence should be trusted. Academics spend a large part of their time trying to prove that other academics’ arguments are incorrect. A person who just believes anything they are told without question would not make it very far in academia.
We can be reasonably sure that the English word box is derived from the Greek word πυξίς and not the other way around for several reasons. Even if we rely solely on the most superficial of sound comparisons, we observe that, the further we trace the word back in time, the less it sounds like the English word box and the more it sounds like Greek πυξίς.
Then there are also all kinds of historical problems. For one thing, the English language as we know it did not exist at the time when the word πυξίς is first attested in Classical Greek. We also have no record of the Greeks at the time having been in any sort of contact with the speakers of Proto-Germanic, the language English is derived from that was spoken at the time.
Most of this seems to be taking Latin roots one step back to their Greek roots – but why stop there? Where did the Greek words come from? If you really want to get into speculation, take it all back to its Indo-European roots . . .
the ancient Greeks, wanted to come up with a language, which you can write and read and therefore they “invented/completed” this alphabet we are using, from this Greek alphabet, the Latin and the Kyrillic one are made of.
And as you can see, the words Greeks use, have always a root, and when you go to this root you can actually understand why….. other examples than the ones in this article:
Acrobat – Acro/batis – acro(extreme-edge/batis-walker) someone who walks on the edge.
Airplane – Aero/plano – Aer(air/plano-floating)
the Greeks also have the origin of Barbar / Barbarians, Barbarians were not the bad nomads on horses who ride through the world, kill and exploit. Barbarians were called the people who didnt speak Greek.
It all sounded like BrBrBaBr to them, so anyone who didnt speak the greek language was a Barbar.
The had no language that you can write or read.
Simply said, the Greeks invented the words they wrote down, and they all have a meaning.
There is no more going back. Its is the root.
The Greeks did not invent all the words in the Greek language. Some Greek words are indeed Greek coinages, but many of them can be traced back to earlier languages. The Greek language itself is derived from Proto-Hellenic, which is derived from Proto-Indo-European.
Not only that, but many Greek words are compounds of other Greek words. And the meaning of these compound words derives from the meanings of their Greek roots. Showing unequivocally the origin of these words to be Greek. And rulling out the possibility of “going back” to earlier sources for these words!
Except those selfsame “Greek roots” quite often go back to earlier languages, like Proto-Indo-European.
It’s impossible to be exhaustive in a post like this, but you’re missing the somewhat interesting words pain and pine (in the sense ‘yearning’), which are both ultimately from Dorian Greek ποινά.
Greek had (and has) πύξος and Latin buxus, so it’s a wanderwort from a Near-Eastern source; they mean ‘box tree’. Latin did borrow, however, the Greek πυξίς (which originally meant ‘receptacle made out of box-wood’, then ‘receptacle’ generally)—thus English box and French boîte etc. seem to be from Latin but influenced by the Greek word, or maybe rather from the Greek word with influence from the Latin buxus.
Oh yeah, I actually forgot that the words pain and ποινή (poinḗ) were related! I’m certain there are plenty of other fascinating words that I’ve missed.
nous – use your nous ( now-s ) – from the greek nous ( νους = mind )
I have honestly never heard anyone use the word nous in casual conversation. It’s a word that seems to be almost exclusively used in philosophy.
I can confirm that ‘nous’ is very commonly used in the North of England….my parents’ generation used it very often when criticising their kids (also teachers in school).
They would use phrases like ‘use your nous’ meaning more ‘use common sense’, or ‘he’s got nous’ meaning ‘he’s smart’
Huh. Well, that’s interesting. All I can say is that this must be a really weird regional thing. I’m from Indiana and, as far as I know, no one here has ever used the word nous in casual conversation. It’s an extremely arcane philosophical word. Even when philosophers talk about Platonic philosophy, they often use the English word mind instead of the Greek word nous.
I can confirm that “nous” in the sense of common sense is very common in colloquial British English. Not in Standard English so much, but particularly in both Northern and Cockney dialects, and it’s understood throughout British English.
The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. London Oxford University Press.
Second edition 1963.
Nous=common sense;gumption.
The most commonly used word in English was left out and even the spelling is almost exactly as in Greek where Greek letters have replaced vis a vis by Latin letters.
Where the Greek letter X has been replaced by the similar sounding Latin letter H.
The Greek diphthong OY replaced by the Latin OU.
The Greek consonant Σ replaced by the Latin S of the same voice.
With the addition of the last vowel e.
Of course the word is none other than which comes directly from the ancient Greek word which is the raw material to built a house.
The English word house is probably unrelated to the Greek word χοῦς.
The word house is certainly derived from the Old English word hūs, which is certainly derived from the Proto-Germanic word *hūsą, which is most likely derived from the Proto-Indo-European verb *(s)kew-, meaning “to cover.”
There’s a little bit of wiggle room where you could perhaps argue that *hūsą might come from χοῦς, but, considering that χοῦς doesn’t actually mean “house” in Ancient Greek and, in Ancient Greek, the letter ⟨χ⟩ represented an aspirated voiceless velar stop, not a voiceless glottal fricative, I’m quite convinced that house and χοῦς are unrelated.
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Therefore can not dismiss it altogether.
Χους certainly doesn’t mean house in ancient Greek but what I said, is the raw material widely used to build a house.
Can we? Therefore dismiss any possibility the proto Germanic word hūsą which actually means a small hill of pilled earth, perhaps to cover a dwelling?
You cannot go letter by letter like that! Theoretically, obviously you might chance upon something correct, but that would be only by luck.
English has house, German Haus, Dutch huis and Swedish (Norwegian, Danish) hus, Icelandic hús, Gothic -hūs in the word gudhūs ‘tempel’. You would have to explain
(1) how the word meaning ‘heaped up earth’ (from χειν ‘to pour, to scatter’) changed its meaning to ‘house’; ‘a covered place’ is much better starting point for simpler houses, even if this etymology isn’t 100% certain. If they somehow needed to borrow a word meaning ‘house’, δόμος would be much more logical.
(2) how that word happened to wander so far (and wide) north, when there are no known Greek loan-words in Proto-Germanic.
Moreover, every example above has been mediated by Latin (with one exception that had a very specific ecclesiastical context and origin); we have nothing like **hūs : **hūris in Latin nor its descendants Romanic languages.
It won’t wash at all, I’m afraid.
Indeed. If we definitely need to talk about the notion ‘house’ I would rather mention the word οίκος (ϝοῖκος) which through the latin ‘vicus’ gave the English ‘wick’ (village).
Okay, can I add Id to Ego? The democratic Athenians called private people who were not interested in politics “idiots”!
I should have looked it up first! Sorry. Id is from a different etymology than idiot, ideology, idiom etc.
The word id comes from the nominative form of the Latin third-person singular personal pronoun. Likewise, the word ego is actually derived from the nominative form of the Latin first-person singular personal pronoun. I completely understand why some people think it comes from Greek, though, since the nominative form of the Greek first-person singular pronoun is ἐγώ (egṓ). The reason why the nominative forms of the first-person singular pronoun are identical in Latin and Greek is because both are derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *éǵh₂.
I think the written Ancient Greek language is enough centuries before the Latin, to take the Latin words who you are referring to as deriving from the Greek.
What about the word: culture
Many linguists would have us believe that the word has nothing to do with Greek and would present us with all sorts of evidences and excuses to support their case.
I firmly believe, the word ”culture’ comes from the Greek word ”καλλιέργεια” which come from the Greek words ”καλή” which means good, and ”ενέργεια” which means energy. The combination of these two Greek works means good ergon i.e. good work.
Your belief is owing to your being a Greek. Greek did give an awful lot to the world—there’s no need to see its influence where there is none. (There’s not ενέργεια in the word καλλιεργία but a derivative of έργον.)
We cannot really use Modern Greek when studying Ancient Greek. First, the pronunciation is totally different from the ancient one (even though there were dialects in the Classical Antiquity), and secondly different words and phrases were used. Plato wouldn’t, for instance, have understood a modern Greek saying “ευχαριστώ”, however pronounced, as the meaning ‘thank you’ for this word is much later. We have to see the logic of Ancient Greek from within that form of language.
As to these words, Latin “cultura” is an older word than καλλιεργία and καλλιεργειν. In addition, the meaning is quite different. “Cultura” is a derivative of the old verb “colere”.
Greek gave us democracy, but Latin culture—when speaking of words, at least.
Καλλιέργεια-καλλιεργείν-culture have exactly the same meaning in both Greek and English. To cultivate. Even in French ”culture” Italian ”cultura” which means to cultivate. If one cultivates the fields is agriculture (αγρός+καλλιεργεια) or one can cultivate the arts, or sicieces, or mind and soul (πνευματική καλλιέργεια) which simply is referred as culture.
And yes Plato would understand the <> for the simple reason the word follows exactly the ancient structure of words where <> meaning pleasing made out of <> which ia epiphonym of joy and <> which means the best of the best i.e. excellent and the ending <> personal antonym first person <> which in English is ”I”.
Or do you believe Plato did not have the intellect to break down the components of the work.
Perhaps he will be a little bit confused of how we pronounce the word today but would have taken him a couple of seconds to get used to.
Happy to have found you!
I have been interested on common (‘primitive’) English words with ancient Greek roots for a very long time! And almost daily I am finding more and more of these. Most all listed in dictionaries as “origin unknown”. Or of rather dubious non-Greek origins. Which shows how academia missed the mark.
Have you been following the weekly posts of “The Oxford Etymologist”? Do so! Just last week he discusses the origins of the word “cut”. Yet he does not even mention the likely connection to the ancient Greek “κοπτω” (cut).
Another miss to be found in dictionaries: “grass” as deriving from “green”! Who comes up with such stupidity! While not a word is said of Greek “γρασσιδι” (grass–notice the “σσ” to match the “ss”). With ancient Greek roots “γραω” (eat) + “εδο” (place). With the combined meaning of “a grazing place” for animals.
Kostas
I don’t see any compelling evidence that the English word cut is derived from the Greek word κόπτω (kóptō). It is true that the two words do have close to the same meaning and that they are relatively close in sound, but it’s hard to explain how the word could have gotten from Greek into English at such an early date without any clear intermediaries.
There are also more likely etymologies for the word. For instance, there are bunch of clear cognates of the word cut in the Scandinavian languages, which suggests that the word may be of North Germanic or Proto-Germanic origin. Alternatively, it could be derived from the Old French word coutel, meaning “knife,” which comes from the Latin word cultellus.
The English word grass cannot be derived from γρασίδι because the word γρασίδι only exists in Modern Greek. The word for “grass” in Ancient Greek is not γρασίδι, but χόρτος (chórtos). The English word grass is derived from the Old English word græs, which is derived from the Proto-Germanic word *grasą, which is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *gʰreh₁-, meaning “to grow.”
If it is any consolation, though, the word χόρτος is derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *ǵʰórtos, which is also the source of the English word yard. That means χόρτος and yard are cognates.
Harriet writes,
“Why would English words derive from a language that nobody in Western Europe had come across before the fifteenth century? There is no evidence of Greek trade, invasions or even ‘culture’ prior to the fashion for printed works by Classical writers.”
That is wrong! That is the reasoning that kept us blind to the truth!
Many recent ancient DNA scientific findings now establish the Neolithic first farmers of Europe came from the Aegean/Anatolian region.
These first farmers of Europe brought with them not only their farming knowledge but their language as well. Which evolved over thousands of years to the various European languages of today.
Check this link:
“Early farmers from across Europe directly descended from Neolithic Aegeans”
https://www.pnas.org/content/113/25/6886
Kostas
Harriet, you can call me Kostas.
Its not me that is saying that! But a peer-reviewed paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA!
And though DNA is not geology, it is Science! With scientific methods of establishing the age of human remains (using C14 dating) and the ancestry of these (using DNA ‘fingerprints’).
And what these are showing is the Neolithic first farmers of Europe descended from the Aegean/Anatolian region.
And what I am saying, these Aegean Neolithic settlers of Europe brought with them their language! Seems reasonable! Don’t you think?
As for “even a single English word, with a Greek ‘root’ prior to the fifteenth century”, I can give you very many such words! But I will give you one that even dictionaries list as deriving from Greek.
The “squirrel”, deriving from the Greek “σκιουρος”.
This is argued got into English through Latin. But I am arguing Latin got into English in the AD. And this is a ‘primitive’ word that would have existed much earlier than that! And that was with the Neolithic Aegean settlers of Britain (and other parts of Europe where cognates to this exist). Replacing, for example, the indigenous population of Britain by some 90%.
There were, of course, later migrant groups settling in Europe. No one is disputing that.
Kostas
There is an interesting article published in the science section of Mail online which examines the possibility the ancient Greeks traveled as far as north America.
If let say this could be done, would it be impossible for the ancient Greeks to sail all the way to England following the coast?
And therefore influence the local language?
There are far too many coincidences recurring in the similarity of English words to Greek.
So, why are we so dismissive of this eventuality.
Coincidence which regularly occurs in no coincidence.
You can read the article here:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5345049/Did-ancient-Greeks-sail-Canada.html
Why go that far? When we have firm scientific aDNA evidence the Neolithic settlers of Europe originated in the Aegean/Anatolian region.
These settlers did not just mingle with the ‘natives’. They in time were the natives. Replacing the indigenous Brits, for example, by 90% according to some studies. And their language became the language later to be English.
Kostas
The Daily Mail is not a reliable source. They are a sensationalist tabloid and they will publish literally anything in order to attract readers. There is no compelling evidence that the ancient Greeks ever travelled to North America.
As it happens, though, we know for a fact that some Greek people did go to Britain in ancient times. The Greek traveller Pytheas of Massalia (lived c. 350 – c. 285 BC) visited Britain, Ireland, and the Baltic and published a book about his travels. No copy of Pytheas’s account has survived, but we know that it existed because it is cited by a large number of authors of whose works have survived. Later, when Britain and Greece were both ruled by the Roman Empire, there were certainly people from Greece who travelled to Britain and even some who settled there permanently.
Note that this just means that there were some Greek people living in Britain in ancient times; it does not mean that Greeks ever made up the majority of the population of Britain, nor does it mean that British people are actually Greeks. In fact, it is worth pointing out that there were no English-speakers living in Britain during the time of the Roman Empire.
The English first began to settle in Britain in around the mid-fifth century AD. By the time the English arrived in Britain, knowledge of the Greek language was nearly nonexistent there and any people of Greek descent who were living there had been completely assimilated into the population.
First of all, I think we should all be extremely cautious when reading about genetic studies, since all populations are genetically diverse, genetic samples used in studies aren’t always representative, and even experts have a tendency to misinterpret the data. You can find a genetic study to support just about any claim you want to make.
Second of all, people living in the Aegean during the Neolithic certainly did not speak any recognizable form of the Greek language. The Neolithic Period lasted from around 10,000 BC to around 4,500 BC. Greek is an Indo-European language that probably first developed in around the late third millennium BC and is first attested in writing in the form of the Mycenaean Linear B script in around the middle of the second millennium BC. People living in the Aegean during the Neolithic Period probably spoke a variety of Pre-Greek languages, about which we know very little.
Neither Greek nor English existed during the Neolithic, so the Neolithic is largely irrelevant to the topic of this discussion.
There is a “contemporaneous document” that mentions Pytheas: his own book. Mind you, his book hasn’t survived, but we know that it existed because it is referenced by numerous authors whose works have survived. Among many others, Pytheas is known to have been mentioned by the Greek philosopher Dikaiarchos of Messana, the Greek historian Timaios of Tauromenion, the Greek geographer Eratosthenes of Kyrene, the Greek grammarian Krates of Mallos, the Greek mathematician and astronomer Hipparchos of Nikaia, the Greek historian Polybios of Megalopolis, the Greek geographer Artemidoros of Ephesos, the Greek philosopher Poseidonios of Apameia, the Greek geographer Strabon of Amaseia, and the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus.
Furthermore, there is, in fact, archaeological evidence that some Greek people lived in Britain in Roman times. For instance, there is a large number of surviving gravestones and curse tablets that have been discovered in Britain dating to the time of the Roman Empire that bear inscriptions in the Greek language. Some of these inscriptions specifically mention people with Greek names and Greek deities.
For instance, a dedication tablet discovered in the city of York dated to the Roman Period that is currently on display in the Museum of London bears the inscription: “ΩΚΕΑΝΟΙΚΑΙΤΗΘΥΙΔΕΜΗΤΡΙΟΣ,” which means “Demetrios [dedicates this] to Okeanos and Thethys.” The inscription is written in the Greek language, Demetrios is a Greek name, and Okeanos and Thethys are Greek deities. This tablet and the many others like it that have survived prove that there was a Greek presence in Britain during the time of the Roman Empire.
This does not mean that everyone in Britain during the Roman Period was Greek; there are also surviving inscriptions from Roman Britain in Latin, Brittonic, and even Aramaic, indicating that Roman Britain was very multicultural and multilingual.
Incidentally, there is no evidence that there were Phoenicians in Britain during the Roman Period. The closest thing to Phoenicians in Britain during Roman times would have been Punic speakers from North Africa.
The aDNA paper I linked is a peer-reviewed paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. It was authored by some 39 scientists from around the world. All signed off on its findings and have their reputation on the line. I don’t think they would do that if they did not agree with everything in it.
Though it is true that scientists do ‘shade the truth’ they don’t deny the facts.
They would, for example, describe the Aegean as East Mediterranean, or the Aegean Asiatic coast as Anatolia. Or even refer to that whole region as Middle East. Changing the focus and meaning of their findings by enlarging the scope and the naming of their terms.
As to whether the sample size used in the study was large enough, how many nuts you need to pick from a sack in the dark to know which sack of nuts you picked? In the prehistoric times we are dealing with, groups of same people were more clustered in same geographic areas. There was less mingling than today.
“Second of all”, the Neolithic pre-Greek may not have been the same as the Classical Greek, but many of the words likely were the same.
We know language changes over the span of time. But many words do stay the same. For example, ancient Greek and modern Greek.
Why should we be surprised of that? Further, why even use that as an argument. We are discussing etymologies of words here. Not evolutions of languages.
Kostas
The name Alexander is derived from the Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros; ‘Defender of the people’, ‘Defending men’,[2] or ‘Protector of men’). It is a compound of the verb ἀλέξειν (aléxein; ‘to ward off, avert, defend’)[3] and the noun ἀνήρ (anḗr, genitive: ἀνδρός, andrós; meaning ‘man’)
from WIKIPEDIA.ORG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander
“…but it’s hard to explain how the word could have gotten from Greek into English at such an early date without any clear intermediaries.”
In my reply to Harriet I provide a link that shows how ancient Greek words “could have gotten from Greek into English at such an early date”.
And its not just “cut”! Its a long and growing list of common English words with ancient Greek roots. Before, this was dismissed as not possible. Now we know how it happened!
BTW, the root “γραω” in the Greek “γρασσιδι” (also spelled with a “σσ”) is attested in ancient Greek. As for “χορτο”, that does not have the same nuance as “grazing field”. It does not mean the same as “γρασσιδι”.
Consider this. How did “σκιουρος” enter English at an early stage to be “squirrel” ? Latin? But that was in the AD! Surely the Neolithic Brits had a word already for such a common creature!
The weakness in all the etymologies of English words traced through Latin to Greek! And leaving by the wayside so many others that can’t.
Kostas
The early English did, in fact, have a word for “squirrel.” The word for “squirrel” in Old English is ācweorna, which comes from the Proto-Germanic word *aikwernô. This word, however, was eventually displaced by the word squirrel, which was introduced through Old French and is ultimately of Greek derivation.
Please allow me clarify what I said about it being “hard to explain” how the word κόπτω could have gotten into English. There are plenty of Greek words that got into English very early on, but nearly all of those words passed through Latin or another language first. The exceptions to this rule are words related to the church, which were probably introduced by Christian missionaries who knew how to speak Greek.
As far as I’m aware, there’s no word in Latin or another language that could plausibly be an intermediary between κόπτω and Middle English cutten. Furthermore, while the words cutten and κόπτω are vaguely similar in sound, they aren’t close enough to establish a connection and they aren’t even identical in meaning, since κόπτω can mean “to hit” or “strike” and cutten cannot.
I’m not saying it’s impossible that cut could be derived from κόπτω; I’m just saying that I don’t really see any compelling evidence.
That there was another word for squirrel does not explain anything. Certainly it does not explain how the Greek “squirrel” got into the English!
While my reasoning does! Consistent with the scientific facts now known.
Many things may have multiple names! Why should that surprise us?
Kostas
As I specifically note in both my original article and in my comment above, the word squirrel passed into English through Latin and Old French. We know exactly how the word got into English.
A book that has not survived can be cited as evidence, but only if there are surviving sources that record what it said.
Imagine that a guy named Bob writes a book. Then a guy named Joe comes along, reads Bob’s book, and writes his own book in which he summarizes information from Bob’s book and says that he read the information in Bob’s book. Now imagine that, a thousand years later, all copies of Bob’s book have lost, but a few copies of Joe’s book survive. Then someone reads Joe’s book in which Joe summarizes information from Bob’s book. Joe’s book is evidence of what Bob wrote.
Now, of course, someone could try to argue that maybe Joe was lying when he wrote his book and that Bob’s book never really existed. Let’s say, though, that Bob’s book is referenced by twenty other surviving books written by twenty different writers, all of whom seem to have had access to copies of Bob’s book. At that point, it becomes really hard to argue that Joe just made Bob’s book up. The simplest explanation is that Bob’s book existed.
This is basically the case with Pytheas. We don’t have his book, but we have other books that mention it, including books that actually quote from it. This seems to indicate that Pytheas’s book existed and, by extension, Pytheas himself.
I have already given you a long list of names of ancient authors who are known to have mentioned Pytheas’s book, but, for some reason, you are choosing to ignore it. I give the list in this comment I wrote yesterday in response to your first comment claiming that there are no contemporary sources for Pytheas. You literally quoted the comment I am referring to multiple times in your last reply, so I know you know the comment exists. Since you are ignoring my comment, however, I will quote the list here:
Of the authors I list, Dikaiarchos of Messana and Timaios of Tauromenion were both contemporaries of Pytheas who had access to his book. Eratosthenes of Kyrene lived shortly after Pytheas.
Harriet writes,
“Our genetic data does not show this. [Neolithic first farmers of Europe descended from the Aegean/Anatolian region]”
Quoting from the peer-reviewed pnas paper I linked:
“We recover genome-wide DNA sequences from early farmers on both the European and Asian sides of the Aegean to reveal an unbroken chain of ancestry leading from central and southwestern Europe back to Greece and northwestern Anatolia.”
Do we believe Science or do we believe Harriet!
Kostas
The idea that “nobody in western Europe” knew about Greek until the fifteenth century is demonstrably wrong. There were Greek colonies in southern Italy as early as the eighth century BC. The city of Marseille in southern France was founded as the colony of Massalia by Greek settlers from the city of Phokaia sometime around 600 BC. During the time of the Roman Empire, many educated people throughout western Europe could speak Greek. A few Roman writers even wrote exclusively in Greek, such as the orator Klaudios Ailianos. Knowledge of the Greek language became significantly less common in western Europe during the Middle Ages, but there were still some people in western Europe who could speak it and even most of the people who couldn’t speak it were aware that the language existed.
“We know exactly how the word [σκιουρος] got into English.”
Can you tell us exactly how that happened? Saying “through Latin” is not exactly “exactly”!
Here is what I find weak with that argument:
The Roman occupation of Britain was mainly in the early AD. Surely, as I have argued, the Brits at that time had already a word for squirrels. You counter argued they did! You write, the “word for “squirrel” in Old English is ācweorna, which comes from the Proto-Germanic”.
But Old English postdates the Roman occupation of Britain by several centuries. “It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century.” [Wikipedia]
So how did Roman “squirrel” replace Old English “ācweorna” centuries after the presence and absence of Roman soldiers in Britain? And how could the presence of Roman soldiers have altered the common everyday language of the occupied Brits?
Further, how do we know the Brits in the BC used “ācweorna” and not “squirrel”? This is an unwarranted assumption without any proof. Unless you know exactly how that happened. Please tell us!
It doesn’t make sense! But what makes sense, and is supported by scientific aDNA evidence, is the ancient Greek word “σκιουρος” came to Britain with the Neolithic Aegeans that settled in Britain. Replacing the indigenous people by some 90%, according to some studies. Thus establishing their spoken language as the substrate of English to come.
Kostas
No, the word didn’t come to Britain through “Neolithic Aegeans.” I’ve already explained why that notion is pure nonsense. There were no Greek speakers in the Aegean during the Neolithic, nor were there any English-speakers in Britain; both languages developed much later.
There were no English-speakers in Britain during Roman times either. The inhabitants of Britain whom the Romans conquered in the first century AD did not speak English, but rather various Celtic languages. Over time, the Romans imposed their culture and their language on the British. Then, in the early fifth century AD, the Romans were forced to abandon Britain because their empire was greatly weakened and they didn’t have the resources to protect Britain from invaders. The earliest speakers of Old English first came to Britain in around the mid-fifth century AD from what is now Denmark. They intermingled to some extent with the local Romano-Celtic population. Thus, the English nation was born.
I’ve already explained how the word squirrel got into English multiple times, but you keep refusing to listen. In ancient times, the Greek word σκίουρος passed into Latin as sciurus. In late Roman times, people started using the word scuriolus, a diminutive form of sciurus. Over time, the form of Vulgar Latin that was spoken in western Europe developed into Old French. In Old French, the word scuriolus became escurel.
In 1066 AD, England was conquered by the Norman French. As a result of this conquest, a form of Norman French known as “Anglo-Norman” became the language of the educated elite. In Anglo-Norman, the word escurel became esquirel. This word entered the English language and became the word squirrel, displacing the native English word ācweorna.
That’s how the word got into English.
You could be right! In a roundabout way…perhaps.
But there are so many other ancient Greek words in English. Many of which you have included in your list. What of these?
Here is one I recently realized. The English “knee” from the Greek “γόνα” . With the contraction of “ο” to form the monosyllable word “γνα”, we get “knee”. As often happens in the predominantly monosyllabic ‘primitive’ English words. Which also explains the “k” in the “knee”!
What circuitous tortured route to English (pre or Old) here?
The only unified and consistent explanation to all of these words (and there are so so many) is these were brought to Britain with the Neolithic Aegean farmers that settled in Britain and elsewhere in Europe.
Kostas
The English word knee is not derived from the Greek word γόνυ, but the words are related. Knee and γόνυ are both derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *ǵónu. The two words are cognates; that means neither word is derived from the other, but they are both derived from a common ancestor.
The reason why so many basic words in Greek and English are similar is because, ultimately, the two languages themselves are derived from a common ancestor: Proto-Indo-European, a language that was spoken in prehistoric times by a people known as the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Most linguists believe that the Proto-Indo-European homeland was most likely in the steppe lands northeast of the Black Sea in what is now Ukraine and southwest Russia. Starting sometime around 4000 BC or thereabouts, the Proto-Indo-Europeans spread out across Europe and southwest Asia, spreading their language with them.
Languages derived from Proto-Indo-European are known as “Indo-European languages.” There are several branches of the Indo-European language family: the Hellenic branch (which includes Greek and few other closely related languages), the Germanic branch (which includes English, German, Dutch, and most other northern European languages), the Italic branch (which includes Latin and all languages derived from it), the Indic branch (which includes Sanskrit and most modern Indian languages), the Iranian branch (which includes Avestan and most modern Iranian languages), the Celtic branch (which includes Gaulish, Brittonic, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic), the Baltic branch (which includes Lithuanian and Latvian), the Slavic branch (which includes Russian, Polish, and a bunch of other eastern European languages), the Albanian branch (which consists solely of Albanian), the Armenian branch (which includes Armenian languages), the Anatolian branch (which includes Hittite and Luwian), the Tocharian branch (which includes the extinct Tocharian languages), and a few others.
Because Greek and English are both ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European, they tend to share a lot of core vocabulary words.
We don’t have the “original manuscript” for virtually any surviving text from antiquity. All we have are copies of copies of copies. We do have portions of ancient copies of some texts, but even these are virtually never from the original, autograph manuscript written by the author himself.
You have to remember that we are talking about texts that were written over 2,000 years ago on papyrus, a material that usually has about the same life expectancy as modern acid paper. We do have some surviving papyrus texts from antiquity, but these almost exclusively come from the deserts of Egypt, since the hot, dry climate of Egypt is ideal for preserving papyrus.
It is completely unreasonable to expect an original manuscript. Saying that you won’t accept that the original manuscript existed unless you can see it is like insisting that you won’t accept that the original author existed unless you can meet him in person, shake his hand, sit down with him, and eat lunch with him. The authors are all dead and their original manuscripts have all been lost. That’s just the reality when it comes to ancient history.
While not having the original manuscripts can create some difficulties, in most cases, we have no evidence to suggest that the original manuscripts didn’t exist and plenty of evidence to suggest that they did. I wrote an article a few months ago about how we can know that ancient texts are really ancient, even though we don’t have the original manuscripts.
I think you are misunderstanding the “rules that historians are supposed to follow.” Historians rely on the Law of Parsimony, which states that the explanation that requires the least number of ad hoc assumptions is the best. When you have evidence that a source is authentically ancient and no evidence that it isn’t, the most parsimonious explanation is that it is really ancient.
Spencer,
Rereading and rethinking, it occurs to me linguists look for “intermediary languages” (from origins to manifestation) to determine the etymology of a word. And when there is no such written or historical evidence, they determine two words in different languages that sound similar with similar meanings to be “cognates”. But otherwise unrelated.
I beg to differ! That is not the only way words can enter a language from another language. Words from a language (eg Greek or pre-Greek if you prefer) can exist in another language (eg English or Celtic or whatever Brits spoke initially) through the migration and settlement of groups of people from one area to a different and sparsely populated area. (eg Neolithic Aegeans and prehistoric Brits). Making the language these settlers spoke the substrate language for the language that eventually evolved and emerged in time.
PIE is only an assumption and a hypothesis linguists use to explain the cognates found in different languages. But now we should know better. The aDNA evidence traces the movements of prehistoric people from origins to settlements. Thus also the movement of languages.
Can’t just brush aside the Neolithic! Neolithic settlers in sparsely populated regions provided the substrate language for the language that emerged there.
Kostas
Spencer,
As to Neolithic Aegeans not speaking an early form of Greek, a point you repeatedly make, the following scientific study proves that it wrong!
“The ancient Mycenaeans and Minoans were most closely related to each other, and they both got three-quarters of their DNA from early [Neolithic Aegeans] farmers who lived in Greece and southwestern Anatolia”
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/greeks-really-do-have-near-mythical-origins-ancient-dna-reveals
If the “ancient Mycenaeans and Minoans … got three-quarters of their DNA from [Neolithic Aegeans]”, wont they also inherit their language too?
Every which way we turn, Science is pointing the way to the Truth! The substrate language of English (and other European languages) is ancient Greek. Brought there by Neolithic Aegean settlers. In what is now known as the Mediterranean Migration Route to Europe. Which actually predates by some 2000 years the later Northern Route from the Eurasia Steppes by the Yamnaya people.
Kostas
Uh, no.
That study doesn’t prove anything because, whatever else you may think, DNA and language are not the same thing. Being genetically related to someone does not mean you speak the same language as them. You’re really grasping at straws here.
I think you ought to reexamine the Cypriot-Minoan writings. Some of the words used can readily identify with ancient Greek Dorian words but written differently.
“Being genetically related to someone does not mean you speak the same language as them. ”
Perhaps not in todays mingled and mixed-up world. But not in the Neolithic world. Which was a world closest to Nature. Where language and DNA was linked as much as birdsong and bird species.
Kostas