How Extensive is the Use of Latin and Greek in English Vocabulary?Forhundreds of years after the fall of the Roman Empire, Latin and Greek were usedthroughout Europe as the languages of education and knowledge.Europeanscholars wrote their works in them and educated men corresponded mostly inLatin, with some Greek, with other educated men of their own or differentnationalities.As lateas the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Francis Bacon wrote his scientific worksin Latin. This despite the fact that he was one of the most accurate andprecise writers of English the English race has ever produced.In fact,the writing of works in Latin and Greek in order to secure an internationalaudience continued up into the eighteenth century.Theperspective that Latin and Greek were the languages of the educated accountsfor the fact that practically any term we use connected with knowledge or anyof the arts, or with religion, science, or education, is of Latin and Greekorigin.Even Anglo-Saxon words were influenced by LatinThe tersesimple words in English, referring to the "home", the"family", or the "farm" are mostly from the Anglo-Saxon,but even here there is an important Latin influence.We mustremember that the Romans were in Britain for nearly 400 years and left a stronginfluence on the local speech, so that the Anglo-Saxons, when they arrived,also picked up and incorporated a great many Latin words into their ownlanguage.Aneveryday Anglo-Saxon-sounding word; such as, plum comes from the Anglo-Saxonpluma; but pluma is merely an Anglo-Saxon mispronunciation of theLatin pruna (plum) from Greek, prounon, a later form of proumnon;which, by the way, comes to us also, through the French, in the form prune.Again,take the familiar word bishop which is derived from the Anglo-Saxon biscop;but biscop in its turn is only an amputated form of the Latin episcopus(overseer, superintendent), and when we want to form an adjective from bishopwe have to go straight to Latin for episcopal; which comes from theGreek word episcopos (watcher, overseer) from the Greek elements, epi-,"over" and -scope, "watcher, examiner". Many otherexamples of this kind may be cited ad infinitum.The history of English was Strongly influenced by FrenchNot onlydid Latin come into English directly and through the medium of Anglo-Saxon, butit also came in a copious stream through French.WhenWilliam the Conqueror defeated the English at Senlac, in 1066, and establisheda Norman aristocracy in England; French became the language of the court and ofthe landed proprietors and of the upper classes in general, and French wasitself a language of almost pure Latin origin.Aboveall, it must not be forgotten that Latin was the language of churchmen and ofthe services of the Church from the ninth century to the sixteenth century.As aresult of this continued influence of Latin (as well as Greek elements) from somany directions, English vocabulary is simply saturated with both of theseclassical sources.The Importance of Latin and Greek etymologies in English wordsClassical Greek has contributed significantly to the richness of EnglishvocabularyForspeakers of English, Greek has been traditionally perceived as remote,esoteric, and yet worth a great deal of respect.Greek word-formingpatterns, words, and word elements were adopted and adapted into Latin over1,500 years, and passed through Latin into many European and other languages,being