Hello my lovely people,
Since it’s the first post of the New Year and a lot of you might still be in holiday mode, I thought I would write something fun but reaaaally informative at the same time. A little reminder that you know more Greek than you realise. And I’m serious!
Let me explain myself.
You already know more Greek than you think
We all know that languages borrow words from each other. But when it comes to Greek, the number of words that have made their way into English is huge. According to the British Council, tens of thousands of English words come from Greek. Can you believe that?
So no, I’m not exaggerating when I say that you already speak Greek. The trick is to start recognising which of the words you already know are of Greek origin. And that’s exactly what I want to help you do here. Once you spot the patterns, you will be amazed at how many Greek words you will realise you already know and how this will help you understand the Greek language better and enrich your vocabulary. Greek will stop feeling like a complete foreign language,
To understand better what I mean, let me tell you a short story. Let’s set a slightly nostalgic tone…
A speech that proved the point
It was 1957, when Xenofon Zolotas, governor of the National Bank of Greece and later Prime Minister of Greece for a few months, gave a speech during the annual meetings of the World Bank.
The speech was received with so much enthusiasm that major newspapers in the USA like The New YorkTimes and The Washington Post, dedicated their front pages to him.
But what was so special about that speech?
Well, X. Zolotas gave a speech in English using almost exclusively words of Greek origin. Before the speech, he warned the audience about his attempt and by the end of it, not only had everyone understood him, but they asked him to repeat the experiment. He gave a second speech two years later, in 1959 using the exact same logic.
I’ll give you part of his second speech and yes I’m going to translate it for you. But, before scrolling down to the translation, I want you to read it carefully. Even re-read it. Take notes of the words you understand and see if you can write them in Greek. You don’t need to understand every word. Just notice how much you do understand.
And keep in mind, this is not a simple or light text. It’s a serious economic speech. And still, I’m pretty sure you recogise more words than you expected.
X. Zolotas’s Speech
“It is Zeus’ anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic
methods and policies, that we should agonize between the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia.
It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic, but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather
cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies should be based more on economic and less on political criteria.
Our gnomon has to be a metron between economic, strategic and philanthropic scopes.”
The speech in Greek
Είναι το ανάθεμα του Δία στην εποχή μας και η αίρεση της οικονομικής μας μεθόδου και πολιτικής να αγωνιζόμαστε ανάμεσα στη Σκύλλα της νομισματικής μας πληθώρας και στη Χάρυβδη της οικονομικής αναιμίας.
Δεν είναι στην ιδιοσυγκρασία μου να είμαι ειρωνικός ή σαρκαστικός, αλλά η διάγνωσή μου θα ήταν ότι οι πολιτικοί είναι μάλλον κρυπτοπληθωριστές. Αν και στιγματίζουν εμφατικά το νομισματικό πληθωρισμό, τον ενεργοποιούν με τις τακτικές και τις πρακτικές τους. Οι πολιτικές μας θα έπρεπε να βασίζονται περισσότερο σε οικονομικά και λιγότερο σε πολιτικά κριτήρια.
Ο γνώμονάς μας πρέπει να είναι ένα μέτρο μεταξύ οικονομικών στρατηγικών και φιλανθρωπικών πεδίων.
It’s not a party trick
Zolotas didn’t choose the words randomly. He relied on something very simple.
Greek roots repeat themselves across languages. And that’s the key!
The same prefixes, roots and ideas appear again and again in Greek and in English words that derive from Greek. Once you start noticing them, Greek vocabulary will start to look more familiar than you have ever imagined.
Let me give you a small example borrowing a word from Zolotas speech.
Let’s take the word philanthropy. Φιλανθρωπία in Greek.
It starts with the prefix philo-. Philo means friend in Greek. Φίλος.
We have a lot of words in English starting with philo-
philanthropy
philosophy
philology
All these are Greek words
φιλανθρωπία
φιλοσοφία
φιλολογία
Do you see the pattern?
Different languages, same root, same idea. In Greek these words literally mean friend of humans, friend of wisdom and friend of words.
And this is just a small example.
Once you start spotting these families of words everything will start to look familiar. It will feel like opening a gate to knowledge that was never really sealed, just not yet uncovered.
And that’s why Zolotas speech worked. Because it was built on patterns the audience already knew, even if they didn’t realise it at the time.
And this is also why I truly believe that learning Greek through word families is one of the most effective ways to enrich your vocabulary, whether you’re just starting out or you’re already at a more advanced level.
What comes next
This article is the starting point of a project I’ve been wanting to create for a long time.
I’m putting together a series of downloadable PDFs, each one focused on a Greek word family. Greek and English side by side, grouped, explained, and organised in a way that actually helps you see the patterns instead of memorising endless lists of words,
Think of them as small reference guides you can come back to whenever you want to expand your vocabulary in a smart way.
To start this project, I’ve created the first short PDF focused on a Greek word family you already know from English: philo-. It is simple, printable and meant to help you spot patterns instead for memorising lists.
This is the first PDF in a series I’m putting together, so you can use it to begin exploring Greek word families in a practical and fun way.
You already speak Greek,
you just don’t know it yet!
Καλή αρχή 🙂
