English Words from Latin and Greek Elements

by Donald M. Ayers, Thomas D. Worthen, R.L. Cherry

Since 1965, Donald Ayers' English Words from Latin and Greek Elements has helped thousands of students to a broader vocabulary by showing them how to recognize classical roots in modern English words. Its second edition, published in 1986, has confirmed that vocabulary is best taught by root, not rote. The importance of learning classical word roots is already acknowledged by vocabulary texts that devote chapters to them.

Why a whole book based on this approach? Ayers' text exposes students to a wider range of roots, introduces new English words in context sentences, and reinforces vocabulary through exercises. It promotes more practice with roots so that students learn to use them as tools in their everyday encounters with new words. English Words is written from the standpoint of English; it neither attempts to teach students Latin or Greek nor expects a knowledge of classical languages on the part of instructors. Its success has been demonstrated at both the secondary and college levels, and it can be used effectively with students in remedial or accelerated programs.

An

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Linguistics, Reference, History, Words, Writing

290 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

Reviews

[Jamie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a textbook for a college vocabulary class. I found it in a box of donated books my library had marked “Free, Help Yourself,” apparently deciding that they could not even get two bits for it. It actually turned out to be worthwhile for anyone with an interest in the etymological roots of English.

It starts with an introduction to English history and the various groups that contributed words, and includes some interesting etymologies. For example, ‘walrus’ was originally horschwael, horse-whale, and is attested as far back as the reign of Alfred the Great in the late 800s. From there it crossed over to Old Dutch where the word order was changed, probably as a result of confusion with a similarly named type of whale. It then apparently died out in English (at least, in early written English) and so when needed again was re-imported, this time from Dutch, as walvis and thus to English’s ‘walrus.’ So, the word made a roundabout journey from horse-whale to whale-horse.

As an aside, walrus was one of the words J.R.R. Tolkien defined for the Oxford English Dictionary. There is a photograph of him at work on it, with his walrus research notes spread around him.

The book has a good discussion of the various ways that Latin words entered English. Initially, many of them came via French after the Norman invasion. Later, as the study of the classics took hold, some were re-imported directly from Latin, with the result that many English words have doublets, close cousins with slightly different meanings. For instance, the Latin root VEN- (or VENT-), meaning ‘to come’, passed through French to English as VENU-, giving us words like avenue. When it was later brought into English directly from Latin we got words like invention and intervene.

Although focused primarily on vocabulary, there are some interesting comments on the social and historical effects of pronunciation and grammar, such as

The middle class, who exploited and settled the territories opened up by the British explorers, pirates, and navy, did not belong to the aristocracy which spoke the London dialect. Hence New England was settled largely by speakers of the East Anglian dialect. Social struggles between the two dialect groups were an instrumental cause of the American Revolution and may have contributed to the radical shift in the pronunciation of English in modern times.” (p. 11)

Latin and Greek elements show up in English words as prefixes, suffixes, and bases (or roots), which this book groups together in short chapters according to their grammatical function. There are also sections on semantic change, grammatical modifications, folk etymologies, doublets, and more. In addition, there are chapters on words that entered the language from religion, sports, place names, the military, and the arts. The book covers hundreds of Latin and Greek prefixes, suffixes, and bases, some of which gave me a minor shock of recognition. For instance, the base CAD- (which also appears in English as CID- or CAS-) is Latin for fall or befall, and thus is the root of words like cadence, accident, incident, casual, and occasion. The book is full of things that made me go, “Hmm, of course. I should have recognized that one.”

I had fun reading this. For a free book that was one step away from being tossed in the trash, I got a lot of enjoyment out of it.

[Michael Bond · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is written as a small textbook, with a narrative introduction to a concept, followed by some roots, prefixes, or suffixes to learn, and some exercises. It is good for self study, and there is an index at the end of both the Latin and Greek sections in order to memorize these elements if one desires. It is easy to read 5-10 minutes at a time.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is terrific if you want to build your vocabulary, and learn how to find out what complex words mean without looking them up (if they're from the classical world, that is). Great source for language building skills.

[Sarah]

A glance into the family tree of languages.

[versarbre · Rating 5 out of 5]

An informative book that gives light to words in the twisting modern English.

[Rachel Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was dope

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

only read half the book (no greek bases)

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for school. I took the class in case I ever want to take the GRE, but mostly I think all I got out of it was a way of deciphering crossword clues.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can use this in my Etymology classes.