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Words using both Latin and Greek roots | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6123 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes  22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 1 of 8 29 August 2009 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
O.K. Test of your etymological prowess. What are some English words that mix Latin and Greek roots? The one that started the discussion was “Super Polyglot”. Super = Latin for “of an extreme or excessive degree” (as used here) Polyglot (πολύγλωσσος) = Greek for many languages Thus a Super Polyglot is one who speaks an inordinate number of languages 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5598 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 8 30 August 2009 at 2:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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I can't think of any long-established words for now, but I think this is probably
relatively common in terms of neologisms, which is after all what we're talking about with "superpolyglot." Some possibilities, some dating from a century ago (warning: I've never done Latin and my Ancient Greek is rusty): hyperspace genocide heterosexual meritocracy Edited by bouda on 30 August 2009 at 2:40am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 3 of 8 30 August 2009 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Possibly the most common example in the English language is television. The inventor, John Baird, coined the name by combining the Greek tele, distant, with the Latin vision, seeing.
Edited by stelingo on 30 August 2009 at 2:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 7133 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 4 of 8 31 August 2009 at 4:42am | IP Logged | |||||
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Another common example is homosexual. The first half is Greek for "same" and the second
half is Latin for...well, I think its obvious. Words that are a mixture of classical roots are often called barbarisms, I believe. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5600 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 5 of 8 31 August 2009 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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What about "automobile". "mobilis" (movable) is Latin but αὐτός (self) is Greek. For that reason the word in modern Greek is Αυτοκίνητο.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6123 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 6 of 8 31 August 2009 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, a barbarism in linguistics is an “error of morphology.” I believe it is an error of morphology to mix classical roots. All of the examples thus far are indeed neologisms. This is because Latin and Greek are no longer the pillars of education that they historically have been in English speaking countries. Edited by JW on 31 August 2009 at 4:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5568 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 7 of 8 24 September 2009 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"Monolingual". "Mono-" is Greek, "-lingual" is Latin. Should be "unilingual" or
"monoglot". 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dakrabby Newbie Australia Joined 4396 days ago 1 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 8 of 8 13 November 2012 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A few more:
Aquaphobia Automobile Biathlon Bigamy Bigram Bioluminescence Claustrophobia Democide Divalent Dysfunction Electrocution Eusociality Geostationary Hexadecimal Hexavalent Homosexual Hyperactive Hypercomplex Hypercorrection Hyperextension Hypervisor Liposuction Macroinstruction Mattergy Mega-annum Metadata Microvitum Minneapolis Monoculture Monolingual Multigraph Neonate Neuroscience Neurotransmitter Nonagon Pandeism Periglacial Polyamory Polydeism Quadraphonic Quadriplegia Sociology Sociopath Television Tonsillectomy Vexillology 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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