In part 1 of this article series, we looked at some examples of words which we use in the English language, but which come from other languages and cultures. In this part, we will look at word roots in English and where they come from.

The English language can be seen as a ‘tree’ with its roots in many other languages. The British Isles were invaded and colonised by many different tribes and empires throughout history, and we can see this even in modern-day English.

So there are words which originally come from the Danish language from the time of the Vikings, such as the word ‘husband’ (which translates roughly to ‘house-farmer’) and the word ‘egg’.
We have words which come from the Arabic language, illustrating the influence of the Moorish Empire on the English language. Some examples of English words with Arabic roots include the words ‘alcohol’, ‘candy’ and ‘giraffe’.

But by far the biggest influence on modern-day English is the Latin language, and through Latin, ancient Greek. More than 60% of all English words have Greek or Latin roots, according to Dictionary.com.

This makes learning English relatively easy if you already know a Latin-based language, such as Spanish, French, Portuguese or Romanian, or if you are a native speaker of such languages. However, if you are unfamiliar with any Latin languages, but you wish to improve your English, one thing that can really help with your understanding is to learn the Greek or Latin meanings of common English prefixes, suffixes, or whole words.

Learning meanings of prefixes and suffixes can be especially helpful if you wish to improve your reading comprehension, because it can help you to figure out the meanings of English words which you have never seen before.

For example, you may be reading a text and see the word ‘asteroid’, a word which is unfamiliar to you. If you do not know the Greek origin, you are lost. But when you find out that ‘aster’ comes from the Greek for ‘star’ then you can make a guess about ‘asteroid’, that it is some kind of star.

With a little bit of studying word roots, you too can be a star at learning English! :)

To find out more about word roots or to learn more about how you can improve your English skills, please feel free to book a class with me. 

(Main Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash)