Listen to the Greek

Wikipedia says that, in a typical English dictionary of 80,000 words, which corresponds very roughly to the vocabulary of an educated English speaker, about 5 or 6 percent of the words are borrowed from Greek directly, and about 25% indirectly (if one counts modern coinages from Greek roots as Greek). Seeing as it's Wikipedia, I'm not at all sure those numbers are correct, but it is something to think about, at least.

The Greek language is one of the few ancient languages in the world that is still spoken in its modern form today. It is considered a separate branch of the Indo-European languages, and has influenced many languages across the world, including Latin, the root of the Romance languages of French, Italian, Spanish etc., and English, among many others.

The use of Greek words in all fields of science, regardless of language, is vast. But there are also many words in English that although at first sight might not seem to be related to Greek, are in fact the product of Greek suffixes or prefixes. The video below shows how much Greek has influenced the English language and how important it is for the understanding of science.

The point of this post: we use with roots in the ancient Hellenic language almost daily. Many concepts from science, politics, medicine and society are derived from ancient Hellenic roots, and the names often stuck. Feeling close to the society our religion rose to greatness in is a lot easier than one might expect, if one only learns to listen.