English Comes From Greek?! (How much?)

“How did Greek influence English?” This video explores the answer to that question, with lots of examples.

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Main music: “Thank you RGE” by Joe Bagale.

[Langfocus]

The main purpose of this video is to show the extent of Greek influence on English, not to give examples of Modern Greek. Note that most English words of Greek origin are not pronounced like they are in Modern Greek, because their pronunciation is usually based on the Erasmian pronunciation of Ancient Greek. Those pronunciations may sound strange to native speakers of Modern Greek.

[davidroig]

I'm not surprised, Greek influenced almost all European languages, not only English lol...around 10% of Spanish vocabulary is also Greek...we use museo, olivos, catástrofe, democracia, parrafos, fotografía, televisión, automóvil, antro, crono, dem, ped (pediatra), bi/bio, geo, dermatología, encefalitis, oftalmología, all your examples are found in Spanish.

[justinhone]

Unexpected greek word--chair. Comes from old french chaiere, from the latin cathedra, from the greek καθέδρα.

[lahagemo]

As a Brazilian I realized how much we've borrowed from Ancient Greek ourselves. Of course it's because the Ancient Romans borrowed from Greek and we're just speaking a vulgar form of Latin, but it's still quite surprising.

[Frahamen]

My favourite word from Greek origin is "School" not because I like schools so much, but rather from the irony that it's original meaning was "free time". As in time to go to learn stuff instead of working in the fields.

[zod]

Greek words that used every day in the English vocabulary:

energy, android, apology, megabyte, school, music, tune, icon, zoo, metallica, trophy, idol, catalog, polyglot, scorpion, saxophone, poem, stereo, idea, rhythm, gym, cosmopolitan, practice, atlantic, stomach, symptom, fantasy, academy, genesis, giant, philadelphia, telegraph, metropolitan, anatomy, autograph, monologue, geography, organization, alexander, logic, magic, photo, erasmus, chorus, irony, lamp, stephen, encryption, episode, plastic, pathetic, biography, phantom, mystery, psychology, menopause, diet, poet, ego, logic, telepathy, gregory, dialogue, electronic, theodore, metamorphosis, oxygen, paradise, telephone, helicopter, automatic, margaret, platform, theater, idiot, history, harmony, climax, clinic, astronaut, mythology, timothy, pathology, astronomy, economy, galaxy, atmosphere, octopus, aphrodisiac, elephant, practice, galaxy, theory, central, encyclopedia, symbol, magnet, georgia, parody, cosmetic, cosmos, fantastic, trilogy, wiki-pedia, guitar, cinema, mathematics, character, machine, symbol, tragic, tonic, geography, kilogram, all, Christmass, telescope, electric, antique, symphony, ocean, angel, planet, melody, and so

Just to name a few....

[Dorminaru.]

This channel deserves way more subscribers

[AndreasBabouris]

Synthesizing logical English phrases by synapsing Greek-based lexical monads harmonically is a Herculean task, but practicable! Massively comical too! :D

[williamrhodes]

Greek is a beautiful language. Who agrees?

[jinengi]

I love greek language. It's on my list of languages to learn. I hope I'll learn it some day

[wilderness_cat]

Another sign of a Greek word in English is the "ch" cluster being pronounced as "k" (e.g. school, stomach, etc.)

[natjones]

These are some of the words you mentioned but in Spanish: autonomía, museo, oliva, caos, catástrofe, democracia, párrafo, fotografía, xenofobia, televisión, automóvil, sociología, antropología, crónico, pediatra, biología, hiperactivo, microscopio, geografía, antivirus, dermatología, encefalitis, filosofía, etc. I am Spanish, but as a lover of Ancient and Modern Greek culture, i believe Greek should be the actual lingua franca. Φιλάκια. Νατάλια.

[herodotusgeorgiou]

In Greek we say it's all Chinese to me! :)

[EvelynaGR]

As a greek who loves foreign languages, I am always amazed discovering new words of greek origin in other languages. Some words, are pretty obvious, but there are some hidden gems as well. Words like kiss, yahoo, kudos, censor, mix, super, are words with a greek origin but don't seem like greek...

[teungamed]

(I am Dutch) I never noticed we had so many semi-greek words in Dutch.

[zanahoriawindchimes]

I think numismatic plethora is my new favorite phrase.

[mpam]

The three words that describe the whole european civilazation.Democracy, christianity, europe.And the three of them are greek.

[CosimoZatti]

I'm italian our language is a mixture of Latin and Greek, also our culture

[azor]

Also many popular names are Greek like: Alexander, Peter, Philipp, Mary, Stephan, Steven, Dennis, Dorothy, Theodor, Melanie, George, Andrew, Margaret, Berenice, Leonid, Leo, Arcadius, Agatha, Theresa, Catherine (Kate), Agnes, Alex, Anastasia, Basil, Nicolas, Chloe, Daphne, Cleopatra, Corinna, Cyril, Darius, Damian, Demetrius, Irene, Erasmus, Eros, Eugene, Thalia, Helen, Jason, Isidora, Cassandra, Melissa, Sebastian, Phoebe, Sophia, Timothy (Tim), Xenia, Zoe...etc...and many more :)

[Flappmeister]

In Swedish, they are very similar words to English words with Greek roots but they have had a few things changed around:
Biology = Biologi
Physics = Fysik
Democracy = Demokrati
And some are very similar in one form, like Museum = Museum, however they change into museet (The museum) and Museer (Museums) so not exactly the same...
There are loads of others I'm sure as well