A large portion of the technical and scientific lexicon of English and other Western European languages consists of classical compounds. These are compound words composed from Latin or Classical Greek root words. Technology (Gr. ... What is science? There are different theories of what science is. ... A lexicon is a list of words together with additional word-specific information, i. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Western Europe is distinguished from Eastern Europe by differences of history and culture rather than by geography. ... A compound is a word (lexeme) that consists of more than one free morpheme. ... Latin is the language that was originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... The History of Greece extends back to the arrival of the Greeks in Europe some time before 1500 BC, even though there has only been an independent state called Greece since Turkey, Italy and Libya. ... Etymology is the study of the origins of words. ...

There would be no dinosaurs in English without classical compounds.

Pink dinosaur at Vernal, Utah (With thanks to Kitty Holmes) This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Pink dinosaur at Vernal, Utah (With thanks to Kitty Holmes) This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Orders Saurischia    Sauropodomorpha    Theropoda Ornithischia Dinosaurs are animals that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for over 100-million years. ...

A source of international technical vocabulary

These classical compounds represent a significant source of Neo-Latin vocabulary. Moreover, since these words are composed from classical languages whose prestige is respected throughout the Western European culture, these words typically appear in many different languages. Their widespread use makes technical writing generally accessible to readers who may only have a smattering of the language in which it appears. New Latin (or Neo-Latin) is a post-medieval version of Latin, now used primarily in International Scientific Vocabulary cladistics and systematics. ... A classical language is a language with a literary tradition that can be judged as classical. According to George L. Hart: [To] qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own not... Technical communications are created and distributed by most employees in service organizations today, especially by professional staff and management. ...

Not all Western European languages have been equally receptive to classical technical compounds. German, for instance, has historically attempted to create its own technical vocabulary from native elements. Usually, these creations are German calques on the international vocabulary, such as Wasserstoff for hydrogen. Like any exercise in language prescription, this endeavour has been only partially successful, so while official German may still speak of a Fernsprecher, public telephones will be labelled with the internationally recognized Telefon. In linguistics, a calque (pronounced [kælk]) or loan translation (itself a calque of German Lehnübersetzung) is a phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word translation. ... General Name, Symbol, Number Hydrogen, H, 1 Chemical series nonmetals Group, Period, Block 1 (IA), 1, s Density, Hardness 0. ... In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules for a language. ... A telephone handset A touch-tone telephone dial Telephone This article is about telephone technology. ...

Formation, spelling, and pronunciation

These words are compounds formed from Latin and Greek root words. Greek words are almost invariably Latinized. In English:

• Greek αι becomes e, or sometimes æ or ae in British English.
• Greek groups with γ plus a stop consonant such as γγ or γκ become ng and nc respectively.
• Greek ει often becomes i (occasionally it is retained as ei).
• Greek κ becomes c, and in English pronunciation is subject to palatization.
• Greek ῤ (rho with spiritus asper) becmes rh.
• Greek θ becomes th.
• Greek φ becomes ph.
• Greek ψ becomes ps.
• Greek χ becomes ch.
• Greek υ becomes y.
• Greek ου becomes u.
• Greek ω becomes o.
• Greek rough breathing becomes h-.

Thus, for example, Greek σφιγξ becomes English (and Latin) sphinx. Exceptions to these Latinizing rules occur, such as leukemia (leukaemia); compare leukocyte, also leucocyte. In Latin, and in the target languages, the Greek vowels are given their classical values rather than their contemporary values in demotic Greek. The term British English is generally used by people outside of the UK to refer to the variant of the English language spoken in the British Isles. ... A stop, plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... Rho (upper case Ρ, lower case ρ) is a letter of the Greek alphabet. ... The spiritus asper (rough breathing) or dasy pneuma (Greek: dasu, δασύ) is a diacritical mark used in Greek. ... The Great Sphinx of Giza, with the Pyramid of Khafre in the background. ... Leukemia (leukaemia in Commonwealth English) is a group of blood diseases characterized by malignancies (cancer) of the blood-forming tissues. ... White Blood Cells is also the name of a White Stripes album. ... Dhimotiki (Greek Δημοτική, IPA //) or Demotic Greek is the standard language of Greece. ...

Greek words often contain consonant clusters which are foreign to the phonology of contemporary English and other languages that incorporate these words into their lexicon: diphthong; pneumatology, phthisis. The typical response in English is to treat the unfamiliar cluster as containing one or more silent letters and suppress their pronunciation. This adds to the irregularities of English spelling; moreover, since many of these words are encountered in writing more often than they are heard spoken, it introduces uncertainty as to how to pronounce them when encountered. A consonant cluster is a linguistic term, simply meaning a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. ... Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), or phonemics, is a subfield of grammar (see also linguistics). ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds) is a vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... Pneumatology refers to the study of spiritual beings and phenomena, especially the interactions between humans and God. ... Tuberculous lungs show up on an X-ray image Tuberculosis is an infection with the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs (pulmonary TB) but can also affect the central nervous system (meningitis), lymphatic system, circulatory system (miliary TB), genitourinary system, bones and joints. ... In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the words pronunciation. ... English spelling (or orthography), although largely phonemic, has more complicated rules than many other spelling systems used by languages written in alphabetic scripts. ...

Classical compounds frequently vary their stressed syllable when suffixes are added: ágriculture, agricúltural. This also gives rise to uncertainty when these words are encountered in print. Once a classical compound has been created and borrowed, it typically becomes the foundation of a whole series of related words: e.g. astrology, astrological, astrologer/astrologist, astrologism. Suffix has meanings in linguistics and nomenclature. ... Farming, ploughing rice paddy, in Indonesia Agriculture is the process of producing food, feed, fiber and other desired products by cultivation of certain plants and the raising of domesticated animals (livestock). ... A loanword (or a borrowing) is a word taken in by one language from another. ... An astrological chart (or horoscope) - Y2K Chart — This particular chart is calculated for January 1, 2000 at 12:01:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time in New York City, New York, USA. (Longitude: 074W0023 - Latitude: 40N4251) Astrology (from Greek: αστρολογία = άστρον, astron, star + λόγος, logos, word) is any...

History and reception

English began incorporating many of these words in the sixteenth century; geography first appeared in an English text in 1535, other early adopted words that still survive include mystagogue, from the 1540s, and androgyne, from the 1550s. The use of these technical terms predates the scientific method; the several varieties of divination all take their names from classical compounds, such as alectryomancy, divination by the pecking of chickens. (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Events January 18 - Lima, Peru founded by Francisco Pizarro April - Jacques Cartier discovers the Iroquois city of Stadacona, Canada (now Quebec) and in May, the even greater Huron city of Hochelaga (now Montreal) June 24 - The Anabaptist state of Münster (see Münster Rebellion) is conquered and disbanded. ... A mystagogue is a person who initiates others into mystic beliefs, an educator or person who has knowledge of the mystic arts. ... Centuries: 15th century - 16th century - 17th century Decades: 1490s 1500s 1510s 1520s 1530s - 1540s - 1550s 1560s 1570s 1580s 1590s Years: 1540 1541 1542 1543 1544 1545 1546 1547 1548 1549 Events and Trends 1541 Hernando de Soto is the first European to see the Mississippi River. ... An androgyne is a person who feels that they do not fit cleanly into societys boxes labeled men and woman. ... Centuries: 15th century - 16th century - 17th century Decades: 1500s 1510s 1520s 1530s 1540s - 1550s - 1560s 1570s 1580s 1590s 1600s Years: 1550 1551 1552 1553 1554 1555 1556 1557 1558 1559 1560 Events and Trends Categories: 1550s ... A scientific method or process is considered fundamental to the scientific investigation and acquisition of new knowledge based upon physical evidence. ... Divination is the occultic practice of ascertaining information by supernatural means. ... Alectryomancy is a form of divination in which the diviner observes a bird or several birds pecking at grain that the diviner has scattered on the ground. ... Binomial name Gallus gallus (Linnaeus, 1758) A chicken is a type of domesticated bird which is usually raised as a type of poultry. ...

Not all English writers have been friendly to the reception of classical vocabulary. The Tudor period writer Sir John Cheke wrote: Sir John Cheke (16 June 1514 - 13 September 1557) was an English classical scholar and statesman, notable as the first Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. ...

I am of this opinion that our own tung should be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges; wherein if we take not heed by tiim, ever borowing and never paying, she shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt.

and therefore rejected what he called "inkhorn terms".

Similar sentiments moved the nineteenth century author William Barnes to create "pure English," in which he sought to strip out all Greek and Latinisms and find Anglo-Saxon equivalents therefor: for Barnes, the newly invented art of the photograph became a sun-print. Later, Poul Anderson wrote a jocular piece called Uncleftish Beholding in a constructed language based on English which others have called Ander-Saxon; this attemped to create a pure English vocabulary for nuclear physics, and until you figure what it is about it is quite unintelligible. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... William Barnes (1801 - 1886) was an English writer, poet, minister, and philologist. ... The Anglo-Saxons refers collectively to the groups of Germanic tribes who achieved dominance in southern Britain from the mid-5th century, forming the basis for the modern English nation. ... A photograph (often just called a photo) is an image (or a representation of that on e. ... Poul Anderson (November 25, 1926 - July 31, 2001) was a prolific science fiction author of the Golden Age; some of his short stories were first published using the pseudonyms A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, and Winston P. Sanders. Poul Anderson also wrote fantasy books, such as the King of Ys... An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose vocabulary and grammar are specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture as with natural languages. ... Ander-Saxon or Anglish is a form of constrained writing in English in which words with Greek, Latin, and Romance roots are replaced by Germanic ones. ... Nuclear physics is the branch of physics concerned with the nucleus of the atom. ...

More recent developments

Many such words, such as thermometer, dinosaur, rhinoceros, and rhododendron, are thoroughly incorporated into the English lexicon and are the ordinary words for their referents. Some are prone to colloquial shortening; rhinoceros often becomes rhino, a situation which may give rise to ambiguity when someone moves from speaking of rhinoceroses to rhinoviruses. The binomial nomenclature of taxonomy and biology is a major source for these items of vocabulary; for many unfamiliar species that lack a common English name, the name of the genus becomes the English word for that life form. A thermometer is a device used to measure temperatures or temperature changes. ... Orders Saurischia    Sauropodomorpha    Theropoda Ornithischia Dinosaurs are animals that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for over 100-million years. ... Species Ceratotherium simum Dicerorhinus sumatrensis Diceros bicornis Rhinoceros unicornis Coelodonta antiquitatis (extinct) A rhinoceros (commonly called a rhino for short) is any of five surviving species of odd-toed ungulate in the family Rhinocerotidae. ... Subgenera Azaleastrum Candidastrum Hymenanthes Mumeazalea Pentanthera Rhododendron Therorhodion Tsutsusi Source: RBG, Edinburgh Rhododendron (from the Greek: rhodos, rose; dendron, tree) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. ... A colloquialism is an informal expression, that is, an expression not used in formal speech or writing. ... Species Human rhinovirus A (HRV-A) Human rhinovirus B (HRV-B) A rhinovirus is a virus member of the family Picornaviridae. ... In biology, binomial nomenclature is a standard convention used for naming species. ... Taxonomy (from Greek ταξινομία (taxinomia) from the words taxis = order and nomos = law) may refer to either a hierarchical classification of things, or the principles underlying the classification. ... Main article: Life There are many universal units and common processes that are fundamental to the known forms of life. ... See genus (mathematics) for the use of the term in mathematics. ...

In the metric system, suffixes that indicate multipliers are typically Greek in origin, such as kilogram, while those that indicate divisors are Latin, as in millimeter: the base roots resemble Greek words, but in truth are neologisms. These metric and other suffixes are added to native English roots as well, resulting in creations such as gigabyte. Words of mixed Latin and Greek lineage, or words that combine elements of the classical languages with English, were formerly castigated as "barbarisms" by prescriptionist usage commentators; this disapproval has mostly abated. Indeed, in scientific nomenclature, even more exotic hybrids have appeared, such as for example the dinosaur Yangchuanosaurus. Personal names appear in some scientific names such as Fuchsia. The International System of Units (abbreviated SI from the French phrase, Système International dUnités) is the most widely used system of units. ... There are several things called a Multiplier. ... The international prototype, made of platinum-iridium, which is kept at the BIPM under conditions specified by the 1st CGPM in 1889. ... In mathematics, a divisor of an integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer which evenly divides n without leaving a remainder. ... A millimetre (American spelling: millimeter), symbol mm is an SI unit of length that is equal to one thousandth of a metre. ... In linguistics, a neologism refers to a recently created (or coined) word, phrase or usage which can sometimes be attributed to a specific individual, publication, period or event. ... A gigabyte (symbol GB) is a unit of measurement in computers of one thousand million bytes (the same as one billion bytes in the short scale usage). ... Barbarism is a language error where a non-standard or an incorrectly formed word or expression is used. ... In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules for a language. ... A name is a label for a thing, person, place, product (as in a brand name), and even an idea or concept, normally used to distinguish one from another. ... Species About 100, including: (Bolivian Fuchsia) (Kotukutuku) (Magellanic Fuchsia) (Shrubby Fuchsia) Fuchsia is a genus of flowering plants, mostly shrubs, which were identified by Charles Plumier in the late 17th century, and named after the German botanist Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566). ...

Classical compounds are sometimes used to lend grandeur or the impression of scientific rigour to humble pursuits: the study of cosmetology will not help anyone become an astronaut. Compounds along these models are also sometimes coined for humorous effect, such as odontopodology, the science of putting your foot into your mouth. These humorous coinages sometimes take on a life of their own, such as garbology, the study of garbage. According to Merriam-Webster, Cosmetology is the treatment of skin, hair and nails. ... U.S. Space Shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandless II using a manned maneuvering unit. ... Garbology is the study of refuse and trash. ... Garbage is an international rock group formed in Madison, Wisconsin in 1993 by Shirley Manson, Butch Vig, Steve Marker, and Duke Erikson. ...

Some classical compounds form classical plurals, and are therefore irregular in English. Others do not, while some vacillate between classical and regular plurals. Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

See also

• -ology
• -ism
• List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names for help with Greek-derived scientific names of organisms
• List of Greek words with English derivatives
• List of Latin words with English derivatives

Informally, an ology is a field of study or academic discipline ending in the suffix -ology. ... The text or formatting below is generated by a template which has been proposed for deletion. ... This list of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names is intended to help those unfamiliar with classical languages understand and remember the scientific names of organisms. ... This is a list of Greek words with derivatives in English (and other modern languages). ... This is a list of Latin words with derivatives in English (and other modern languages). ...

Reference

• McArthur, Tom (ed.): The Oxford Companion to the English Language, (Oxford University Press, 1992}. ISBN 019214183X