The Greek Influence on the English Language The Greek Thesaurus in English
The Greek Influence on the English Language The Greek Thesaurus in English Dr. Αlexandros Papanis Democritus University of Thrace This work grew out of a great concern regarding the question of the influence of the Greek language on English. Many British lexicographers quite often point out that the full understanding of the English language requires a deep knowledge of its Greek roots. Greece as a main source of our civilization remains alive through the use of all the words of Greek origin . In order for us to gain a greater insight into the importance of the above, I shall mention briefly some interesting statistical figures which are indeed astonishing: according to the Webster International Dictionary the total of the word stock of the English language is 166,724 words, out of which 41,214 are Greek. On the other hand, A. Konstandinides, in his remarkable work �The Greek Words in the English language�, argues that the whole of the medical terminology in English amounts to 43,716 w