The Greek Roots in our Everyday Language

Greek words from the Greek language abound in our everyday English language. With so much influence from Greek culture, it should be no surprise that the vivid images of ancient literature survive in our modern conversation. What may surprise you is just how common the Greek language is. Here’s a list of ten to get you thinking:

1. Kudos – A Greek word that means “glory” or “reknown”.
2. Nemesis – A Greek goddess who handed out justice to the wicked.
3. Echo – A nymph was was condemned by Zeus’ wife, Hera to repeat the last thing someone said and nothing else after she tried to fool her.
4. Dogma – from the Greek Doxa, meaning “opinion” and Dokein meaning “to seem to believe”.
5. Academy – an institution of higher learning and traces back to Plato’s school of philosophy at Akademia, sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill.
6. Mega – originally megas; meaning large or great.
7. Moron – Coined in 1910 by psychologist Henry H. Goddard from the Greek word, moros which means dull.
8. Panorama – First used in 1796 combining the word pan and the Greek word horama meaning sight.
9. Sarcasm – From the modern Greek sarkasmos meaning ‘to tear flesh, gnash the teeth, speak bitterly’’.
10. Tripod – Literally from the Greek words for “three” which is tri and pous which means “foot”. The best known tripod is the stool where Pythia sat to produce her oracles at Delphi.

These little exercises are pretty helpful for any person. Many people love to vacation in the Mediterranean to visit the beautiful countries and since it is the first time for most of these tourists, they assume that everyone in all of the different countries speaks the same language. Once they arrive and go from country to country they may feel a little frustrated because they do not speak the language and want to learn how to speak Greek and all of the other languages they have been hearing as they are doing their travel.

Some people think that it is really a tough time, trying to learn Greek just by looking for the English to Greek words. Because even though you are learning new words every day, it probably would take many years to be fluent with a plan such as this. If this is something you wanted to do, you have to make a better plan. Having your own personal tutor can become your solution to the language.

There are many more words which are nearly completely borrowed from the Greek language . It is amazing to think that such ancient words would be used in modern language but yet they are present. How many Greek words can you find in your everyday language?