Category talk:Greek derivations

English words from Greek. Aside from learned literary borrowings, no English words derive directly from Ancient Greek or Koine Greek, but rather via one or more languages or stages of a language (Latin, French, etc.).
 * First of all, a large number of scientific terms come from the Greek. And while, admittedly, few others come directly from Ancient Greek, many words originated in Greek (or at least the Greek is the earliest known occurence) and have been passed rather faithfully from it to us via other languages (e.g. Greek to Latin to French to English).  While these words don't come directly from the Greek, an etymology is most useful which cites the Greek origins as these usually convey its original meaning. Cerealkiller13 16:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * A clarification of my earlier comment (back when I was called Cerealkiller13): On Wiktionary we are making a distinction between Greek (i.e. modern Greek) and Ancient Greek. Ultimately, almost no English words come from Greek (though there certainly are some, just very few compared to Ancient Greek).  Nearly all words of "Greek" origin come either via Latin or ad fontes, which was concerned with classical Greek texts, not current ones.  Thus, this particular category should be fairly small, consisting only of words taken from modern Greek, such as gyro.  -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 01:24, 26 July 2008 (UTC)