Some high school and even college writers will despair because they feel that they don't have a solid vocabulary to beef up their essays. People learn new vocabulary through exposure - through reading and talking. But if they don't know what a word is and can't figure it out in context, many readers will simply gloss over a passage and go to the parts they understand.
But there is a relatively easy way to understand words without studying them excessively. If a reader knows some basic Greek root words, he can piece together their meaning in an English word. So how have Greek roots contributed to the modern English language? More than most people know, and learning many of these root words will help in deciphering the meaning of multiple English words.
How Can a Student Decipher a Word by Knowing its Greek Roots?
Many English words come from Greek roots, and if a person knows what the root or roots mean, she can piece together the meaning. One example is the word "pseudonym," which basically means a pen name. Used in context, a person might write, "One of Stephen King's pseudonyms is Richard Bachman," meaning that Stephen King has a pen name, and so he also writes books under the "false name" of Richard Bachman.
So how can a student use the knowledge of Greek roots to help him decipher this word if he's never heard of it? Well, the word pseudonym uses the Greek root "pseudo," which means "false," so even if the reader doesn't know that "nym" (not a Greek root) means "name," he can at least figure out that the word indicates something that isn't true. The root psuedo is used in many common English words, and once a student knows that it means false, he can figure out the meaning of many words. Here are just a few that are easy to decipher once a student knows the root meaning: pseudoscience, pseudocyst, and pseudogout, just to name a few.
Another common Greek root word is "homos," meaning "same." It's used in words like homogenize (making something the "same" quality throughout,such as milk), homonym ("same" name), homophone (same sound), and many others.
A Few Examples of Greek Root Words
Once a student makes the "Greek connection," she can learn a lot of words quite quickly! There are a lot of internet sources that can teach some Greek roots, but here is a quick, short list of some common Greek root words:
- Bio (life), as in "biology"
- Gyne (woman), as in "misogyny"
- Hemi (half), as in "hemisphere"
- Logia (study or reasoning), as in "pharmacology"
- Photo (light), as in "photosynthesis"
- Psyche (mind), as in "psychiatrist"
- Therme (heat), as in "thermal"
There are literally hundreds of Greek roots used in English words, so learning them can help a student master a lot of English words at once!
Learning Greek Root Words Makes Writing and Reading Easier
It might not seem like much at first, but realizing that thousands of English words are based in Greek roots, it's easy to see how learning even just a fraction of Greek roots can help a student figure out a word's meaning without breaking out a dictionary. Even just learning one Greek root can help crack the meaning of dozens of words; for instance, the Greek root "biblio" meaning "book" gives the English language words like bibliography, bibliophile, bibliotheca, and Bible. Learning Greek roots really does give students more power over the English language.
Cynthia Jones-Shoeman - Cynthia (“Cindy”) Jones-Shoeman earned her MA in English from Colorado State University in 2007; her thesis was "Toni ...
