Talk:List of Greek and Latin roots in English

message: I am trying to improve my english vocabulary, and this is an excellent tool, to make sense out of words I do not know.  As it is it is useful, as I can make flash cards to memorize them.  It would be useful if this included the most common words too, such as the 20% that is used 80% of the time, would help me to concentrate on those. The importance is that the english words have to in fact have the root or word  as the root of the english word.  I don′t think that the actual root is needed for my purpose, but the letter phrase that is seen in English words needs to be specified.  If you want to have ″a historical list of all greek roots″ (Greek Project) or ″all latin roots″ (Latin Project ?) that appear in all languages than that may be something else.  If this list is cut up and each line is put it into the wikipedia's dictionary as separate 
entity,  it becomes much less useful for learning English. Will there be a way of recovering a list for study at that point?    Please keep it in tack as at least 2 lists, as a study aid.  Gabrielle 128.186.150.141 (talk) 14:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: What is the purpose of this Page? 

message: To help the debate, I want to point out that the French version of the page has already split both Latin and Greek in two.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.36.153.128 (talk) 15:53, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Splitting Latin & Greek

message: Shouldn't this list be sorted according to if the root is Greek or Latin (or, in the case of ex-, both), or at least having that marked next to the root. 惑乱 分からん 11:02, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: anyone know the latin form of any of the above three (or greek posibly.)
--216.229.17.8 02:24, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why do you ask? It would be easier to help you if we knew exactly what you'd want it for. Btw, "electricity" is greco-latin for "amber"? 惑乱 分からん 13:26, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  thunder, lightning, electricity, etc. 

message: Would it be possible to arrange this list in a slightly more tabular form so it would be easier to list whether the root is of greek or latin origin?
Also, would it be possible to list examples of English words using the roots? Of course a good deal of these are obvious enough, and indeed numerous enough, to not need examples, but I feel it might benefit someone exploring the uses of some of the rarer roots if we included medical or scientific words which are based on them. Specifically I'm interested in the roots used in entomology. For example Hymenoptera, lepidoptera etc. I could understand if this might be overly complicated and unnecessary, so I defer to the more experienced.Bdrydyk 21:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a good idea. I seem to recall that there is another article detailing "greek and latin roots with english derivitaves", which was substantially shorter, but should probably be merged into this article. -Scharb 05:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting and Examples 

message: As I understand it, "Accelerate" in English is ad- (towards) + -celer- (speed), with the D assimilated to a C because it's followed by a soft C. Hence its opposite, "decelerate," since "de-" means "away from," the opposite of "ad-." I could be wrong, but I'm skeptical as to the claim made here. 69.142.150.232 01:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ac- (2) 

message: Many words with no info here already had info at List of English prefixes, and some other articles which were deleted. I don't understand why those were deleted, and I hope this article isn't deleted as well. That's why I suggest you use the info that once existed (which can be found mirrored here) to make this a good article as soon as possible, before they throw the Wikipedia is not a dictionary bomb here too! Kreachure 22:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing info already existed! 

message: The size of this article is becoming almost unmanageable! What can we do, separate it into smaller articles? That seems stupid somehow, but there's got to be a solution... Mrug2 00:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Size 

message: As mentioned above, there is really no standard as to what is meant by "root" as some of these words are formed from Greek or Latin roots, and some are direct borrowings from Greek and Latin. But the larger problem is that so many of the entries are just plain incorrect; so many that editing them would be a major undertaking. Just looking at the first few:
ac (1)- meaning "sharp", as in "accent" : the word "accent" comes from Latin "ad-" meaning "towards" and "cant-" meaning "sing". Neither root's meaning has anything to do with "sharp" (although Latin "acr-" as in "acrid" does mean "sharp")
ac (2) -swift (derivatively aq- (water) and eq- (horse)) : the three examples given are from completely separate roots. "Accelerate" is from "ad-" as in the example above, and "celer" meaning "swift". "Aqua" means water, and is entirely unconnected with "ac-" in "accelerate". "equus" means "horse", and is also completely unconnected with either of the above two.
agr- "field" : the word "agriculture" comes from Latin, not Greek. The Latin root is found in the word "ager", which does mean "field".
aid- "burn", as in "audacious": The word "audacious" is connected with the Latin "audax", meaning "daring"; as far as I know it is not connected with any "aid" root, or with the meaning "burn"
al- "other", as in "alternate": The root here would not be "al" but "alter-"; there is an "ali-" root (as in "alien") which means "other"
an- "year": the root is "ann-"; e.g. Latin "annus"
This is just from the first few entries; I imagine the rest of the list is just as flawed. In my opinion, this article should really be removed, as it will only lead people interested in word roots in the wrong direction.
__________________________________________________________
Response: Seconded.  This page is fundamentally untrustworthy.  While there are many things that are right, only a reader who already knows the answer will be able to discern fact from blatantly false fiction.
--RESPONSE: For the most part you are right, but some of your data is...well...wrong.--
AC (2) - You may be correct that the entry is false, but equus and aqua are words, not roots. Don't claim that they are roots.
AGR - agros is an Ancient Greek word meaning field, meaning yes, AGR is Greek. It was later absorbed into the Latin.
AID - This is the root before any grammatical changes are made to the word (changes that include the vowel shift to AUD). I can confirm that the Elementary Latin dictionary by the Oxford University Press does list this root as related to the word audacious, and I speculate (I don't think too wildly) that the relation comes in the prolific fire imagery related to a courageous spirit in ancient times.
AL - this ultimately comes from Greek allos, meaning other, meaning yes, the root is ultimately AL. The TER and I portions of the roots were later added in the Latin. Oh wait, this makes sense; they both share...oh my gosh...AL!
Oh wait, that looks like over half of your objections are factually inaccurate in some way. Maybe you should be as concerned with your own knowledge as with the accuracy of this page.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.10.242.178 (talk) 02:02, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  'agr' is a good example of the ambiguity of an article like this.  Many English words have elements that come from Latin which themselves are descendants or cognates of Indo-European roots. And consider the example of 'octopus', where the history of transmission of the word affects how we pluralize it.  Where do we stop tracing these back?  Where do we draw the line between a list of roots, and an etymological dictionary?  I suspect that the largest number of people using this article is interested in increasing their vocabulary and ability to understand English words.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richardson mcphillips (talk • contribs) 13:43, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  This page is so incorrect as to render it almost completely useless 

message: I'd like to change the example vocabulary term for copro-, which is currently "coprolite," to "coprophilia." Any objections? Trollaxor (talk) 22:12, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Having multiple examples for an entry is okay, so I might suggest adding rather than replacing. Mild Bill Hiccup (talk) 23:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Change vocabulary example for <i>copro-</i>

message: means war, but also beautiful, no? Lily20 (talk) 17:33, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  bell 

message: One thing that needs to be added to the list is the root 'sito-', meaning food in Greek. Example sitology.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.46.228.18 (talk) 06:58, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  sito- 

message: See title. UNIT A4B1 (talk) 18:31, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  MACRONS!! 

message: This article is in fact highly inaccurate. The editors have no idea what a root is. If it were made accurate, the topic would be far beyond the scope of this material. It would in fact duplicate large sections of the Oxford unabridged dictionary and other large dictionaries. Let us say the scope were changed. It would still duplicate the standard dictionaries. The bottom line therefore is, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Now, Wikimedia HAS a dictionary: Wiktionary. The latter includes etymologies. Rather than waste this material I recommend we put it in Wiktionary, item by item. This will have to be a project. I am not sure how to handle it. It should be marked removed from here forthwith and additions to it should be halted right now.
For post-mortem I do not know what to say. It has the Wikiproject Greece heading on it. I cannot imagine how it is that this "article" got through them, as I know they contain good Greek students. This is what happens when you have very enthusiastic but unknowledgable persons working on specialized projects. You remember the animals trying to run the farm in George Orwell's Animal Farm. They could throw the farmer out all right but running his farm was a different matter.
Details. If we look at any Indo-European word (Greek, Latin and English are Indo-European) we see that it is often a compound produced by combining smaller word segments. A root is a fundamental segment shared by a group of words that take their meaning from it. In Greek and Latin words are formed by suffixing, prefixing or even infixing markers denoting grammatical function: person, number, tense, mood, etc. Don't worry, it is all arranged in a system. All we have to do is memorize the system and develop some analytic judgment about what elements are present and how they are used. If you take away these markers you find one or more root segments. In Latin segments greater than a root but not the complete word are called a stem. Now, the thing is, roots are language-specific. Latin has its own roots, Greek its, English its.
Moreover, these roots contain or are identical with a more ancient set used by proto-Indo-European. Roots in the three languages may be related, or descend from one another. They may be identical or vary only slightly. English may use a Latin root, or a Greek root, or a related English root. It may use a Latinized Greek root or a Latinized or Hellenized other root, say from Celtic. Many roots are unknown. These are often considered "substrate" roots, remnats of an ancient language in Greek, Latin or English. When you say root, you may mean an English root adapted from a Greek or Latin root. Or, you may mean a Latin root or a Greek root. Or you may mean the Indo-Europan ancestor of the Greek, Latin or English root.
Now let's look at what the topic ought by name to be. There is a little ambiguity here. Do you mean English roots adapted from Greek or Latin roots, or do you mean the Greek roots and the Latin roots? I presume it would be the Greek roots and the Latin roots. So you have a choice: a Greek root, a Latin root or in the case of compounds both (a mixture). So you want to give the Greek and Latin roots of every English word that has one. Well, I have on hand 3 volumes of Merriam-Webstaer's Third International Dictionary. Or, I have on hand the American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd edition. If I go to the library I can get a whole shelf of volumes of the Oxford. Our article here would have to contain every single Greek and Latin root, because they are all in English words. But look, why should I use WP for that? Those dictionaries and the Greek and Latin ones were developed over decades, even centuries, by leading scholars who spent years, even whole lives on it. They are all readily available to most people who would be reading WP. I'm supposed to use WP and not them? I wouldn't even think of using WP. If I want know etymologies, your personal opinions mean nothing to me. I wouldn't go to you for a diagnosis, I'd go to a trained and experienced medical doctor. Frankly, this effort seems a bit fatuous and useless to me. It wants to reinvent the wheel in the age of electronics. I have no doubt it assisted a little in the education of the editors. That is the only merit I can see.
Now let's look at what the topic as presented is. The root column. These "roots" are not roots. What are they? Eric Patridge's Origins - an etymological dictionary - is an example of what they are. He has an appendix listing prefixes, another listing suffixes and a third listing elements of compounds. These are the English prefixes, suffixes, etc. He then gives the origin, typically a Greek or Latin word. In most cases he gives the word, not the root. Greek and Latin roots often have to be reconstructed, in which case they are preceded by an asterisk or a check mark. Now Skeat's Etymological Dictionary, of which I am lucky to have a ragged old copy, also gives a list of English prefixes and the related G. or L. word. Then he has a select list of Latin words in which he gives the Indo-European root as he reconstructed it or found it.
"In English" column. All right. These are translations of the words in the first column, certainly not root translations. Roots are two or three letters typically. "Origin language." Well make up your minds, will you? ager is not agros. Agriculture is not from agros. The language is Latin. The name of the process here is analysis not synthesis. We aren't interested in your syntheses. "Etymology (root origin)" An etymology is not a root origin although many etymologies contain them. But, you aren't listing any root origins, only the related words, which is what Skeat, Partridge and all the rest do. American Heritage does list roots. So does Merriam-Webster. "English examples." Well, WP is not a dictionary. Sorry. Just how big do you want this article to be, anyway?
Now you need to decide how to get out of this committment. I'm not going to argue with you about it, so don't bother me about it. I'm not linking to this article as legitimate. I know that at some point it will just vanish. It is not WP. I did suggest what to do about it. Some of you have already seen the light, others the handwriting on the wall. All I can say is, you never waste scholarly work, the experience is always educational. Bye now.Dave (talk) 02:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, let's assume you're right and the article has major technical problems. I can't speak to that, I'm not a linguist - but I do know that I've found it to be of great use when dealing with almost any English technical vocabulary. I do agree that it would be better suited to Wiktionary, though. "I wouldn't go to you for a diagnosis, I'd go to a trained and experienced medical doctor." is missing the entire point of Wikipedia, or any encyclopedia, as an enterprise: to collect the information assembled by such experts and to make it accessible to the public. If it doesn't fit Wikipedia's style, or has semantic issues, fine - fix them. But the article is useful, and those problems should be fixed and/or the article moved; rather than writing an essay on its problems, fix them!.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.158.200.134 (talk) 15:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: I am afraid you will not like what I have to say

message: Early mammal Hadrocodium, who lived about 200 million years ago, is named for having a thick, bulky (hadro-) head (codium).66.235.38.214 (talk) 21:42, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  roots to add ? 

message: Ok, I was wrong about applause coming from laudere.  But the word laudanum does come from laudere, according to the Wikipedia article on laudanum, which cites Paul Strathern's A Brief History of Medicine.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.76.247.52 (talk) 17:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  laud- (laudere) 

message: cog listed as a "root" is inaccurate. summary for why here76.182.237.9 (talk) 16:04, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  cog not a base (etymological or morphological) 

message: . . . means spider.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.99.140.120 (talk) 23:38, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arachne 

message: Dear users, it is not clear to me what kind of definition of root is used here. It seems that in numerous cases this is extended to stem or morpheme. I am however guilty of sin myself, as I have inserted multiple variants of certain stems. The stem is subject to change when used in a compound. In that case, providing the root or the stem, makes it difficult to trace back that string of letters in the compound. Additionally, in some compounds an additional connecting vowel is inserted. In classical Latin most of the time i was used as connecting vowel while in Greek an ο was used. There are however numerous exceptions in Greek. There are a few things that complicate the matter for Latin morphemes. First, in 'modern' usage it is quite common to use the Greek connecting vowel o instead of the Latin i in Latin compounds. Now we find double forms in the English language like parvocellular and parvicellular. Second, modern usage neglects the rule in Latin that when the connecting vowel i follows another i, the connecting vowel i is elided. So in classical Latin one can sport medi-terraneus (English: mediterrannean) and in 'modern' English the compound medio-lateral with the wrong connecting vowel o and without the elision of the connecting vowel is constructed. This variation (and deviation from the rule from classical Latin) makes it difficult for the uninitiated reader to guess what part is part of the morpheme and what part not. In mediocrity the o would be misinterpreted as connecting vowel while the word is actually medi-ocrity (Latin medius + ocris = stony mountain). In case we would include multiple forms/morphemes and would correspondingly write mediterranean, mediolateral and mediocritas it would be clear to the reader how these compounds are constructed. I would also suggest to rename roots in the table to morphemes and include all the disguises that are encounteted in the examples that are supplied. Therefore I included a few examples of morphemes that were subject to rho-doubling or to assimilation. Otherwise, people think arrythmia consists of a- and rrhythmia instead of ar- and rhythmia. With kind regards, Wimpus (talk) 20:49, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The list was originally supposed to include only stems. However, in the course of time, many editors converted the stems to morphemes. Indeed, this is not helpful as it may lead the reader to analyze incorrectly the morphemes of the words that are listed as examples. On the other hand, I would not suggest we change the name of the article; that would be too pedantic. We could either convert the entries back to their stem form or just include a note in the lead section warning the reader that the article's entries feature connecting vowels. --Omnipaedista (talk) 11:19, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roots? 

message: The whole section for the letter "E" appears to be missing.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.236.117.182 (talk) 19:11, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Letter "E" 

message: An editor, , has removed the words misandrist and misandry several times so far from the list of words using the Greek root  (miso-), saying that the concept of misandry is misinformation and that the word therefore should not be used as an example.  and I have reverted this blanking several times now, since it is inappropriate.
Ghostarch, please take your concerns to the talk page of the Misandry article. This article is, as far as I can tell, a complete list of all words using the Latin and Greek roots, and no word can be excluded because an editor has disagreements about the validity of the concept the word refers to. If you don't believe misandry exists, go say so on the Misandry talk page, and do not continue removing the word from this list. — Eru·tuon 00:25, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misandry 

message: How come it's not on the list?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.67.184.42 (talk) 18:09, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cryo 

message: to me that the page is way too slow after I added . I think the only solution is splitting it up. The page was already slow before I added the template, and I would rather not remove it, since it allows for much simpler wikitext ( instead of ). I'm trying to figure out how splitting up can most easily be done. Perhaps creating multiple subpages, such as List of Greek and Latin roots in English/A, List of Greek and Latin roots in English/B and transcluding them to create pages containing all roots from A-M, N-Z, or whatever would create a manageable article size. That way, the length of the page can be more easily adjusted without moving content around. However, I've never done something like this, and I have to figure it out. — Eru·tuon 20:03, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Good work. They are massive lists, but good value. Johnuniq (talk) 00:05, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh dear! It was actually  who posted on my talk page... that is embarrassing. Sorry for confusing you two, just because you're both John... — Eru·tuon 00:24, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Splitting the page 

message: See Talk:List_of_Latin_words_with_English_derivatives#Wikilinks_for_"English_derivatives"_columns for a discussion affecting this article (or rather, its subpages). Colin M (talk) 19:16, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikilinking English terms