How Greek influenced English

Three Ways

• Indirectly by way of Latin• Directly from Greek authors• Combining elements in new ways

English borrowed from four languages:

• Celtic• Latin• German• French

Latin borrowed from the Greek

• Why?– Greek Civilization was older (5th century BC- 1st

Century BC)– Greek poetry and drama provided models for

Roman literature– Roman students studied Greek philosophy and

oratory– Influence of Christianity and trade- where Greek

was the common language

When English borrowed Latin,

it borrowed Greek too!!!!

Renaissance

• “rebirth”- renewed interest in classical antiquity (Greece and Rome)

• Greek Authors– Philosophy- Plato, Aristotle, Socrates– Tragedy- Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides– History- Thucydides, Herodotus– Comedy- Aristophanes– Poetry- Sappho

• Greek words were combined and recombined by modern scientists and doctors

• Ex-– antibiotic– Chlorophyll– Chromosome– schizophrenia

Three Ways

• Indirectly by way of Latin• Directly from Greek authors• Combining elements in new ways

Proto Indo European language

• Single parent language– PROT- beginning– proto- language– Doesn’t exist in recorded form; reconstructed

through comparison of structures of languages we do have in recorded form

• Proto Indo European is the language• Indo European- culture

Indo European language

• Languages from India to Europe• Prehistoric people spoke Indo European• Homeland in SE Europe• 3500 BC- migration W to Europe and S to India– As people become isolated from one another,

languages began to evolve in a particular fashion– As they invaded each other, languages become

mixed even more

Cognates

• Words within languages related in a familial way

• Words of a similar nature

Indo European Language Tree

• Germanic– Teutonic– Vandals- barbarian raiders who sacked Rome in AD

455– Gothic and Vandalic- extinct

• Italic• Hellenic• Celtic