Classical compound
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
Ancient Greek root words.
|
There would be no dinosaurs in English without classical compounds. |
These classical compounds represent a significant source of
Neo-Latin vocabulary. Moreover, since these words are composed from
classical languages whose prestige is or was respected throughout the West 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.
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.
These words are compounds formed from Latin and Ancient Greek root words. Ancient Greek words are almost invariably romanized (see
transliteration of Ancient Greek into English). In English:
*Ancient Greek
αι becomes
e, or sometimes
æ or
ae in
British English.
*Ancient Greek groups with
γ plus a
stop consonant such as
γγ or
γκ become
ng and
nc respectively.
*Ancient Greek
ει often becomes
i (occasionally it is retained as
ei).
*Ancient Greek
κ becomes
c, and in English pronunciation is subject to
palatization.
*Ancient Greek
(
rho with
spiritus asper) becomes
rh.
*Ancient Greek
θ becomes
th.
*Ancient Greek
φ becomes
ph.
*Ancient Greek
ψ becomes
ps.
*Ancient Greek
χ becomes
ch.
*Ancient Greek
υ becomes
y.
*Ancient Greek
ου becomes
u.
*Ancient Greek
ω becomes
o.
*Ancient Greek rough breathing becomes
h-.Thus, for example, Ancient Greek
σφιγξ becomes English (and Latin)
sphinx. Exceptions to these romanizing 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.
Ancient 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.
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.
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.
Not all English writers have been friendly to the reception of classical vocabulary. The Tudor period writer Sir
John Cheke wrote:
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 Ancient Greek and Latinisms and find
Anglo-Saxon equivalents therefor: for Barnes, the newly invented art of the
photograph became a
sun-print. Unlike this one, some of Barnes's coinages caught on, such as
foreword, Barnes's replacement for the
preface of a book. Later,
Poul Anderson wrote a jocular piece called
Uncleftish Beholding in a
constructed language based on English which others have called
Ander-Saxon; this attempted to create a pure English vocabulary for
nuclear physics.
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.
In the , 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.
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.
Some classical compounds form
classical plurals, and are therefore irregular in English. Others do not, while some vacillate between classical and regular plurals.
*
-ology*
-ism*
List of Latin and Ancient Greek words commonly used in systematic names for help with Greek-derived scientific names of organisms
*
List of Ancient Greek words with English derivatives*
List of Latin words with English derivatives*McArthur, Tom (ed.):
The Oxford Companion to the English Language, (Oxford University Press, 1992}. ISBN 019214183X
