Greek words in English

The word telephone has two parts. The first is τῆλε, an old Greek word for “far away”. You can already read it in Homer’s Iliad. The second is φωνή, “voice” or “sound”. Together they mean something like “a voice from far away”.

But the ancient Greeks never used this word. They had no telephones! People in modern Europe built it from the old Greek parts. A big French dictionary finds French téléphone in 1809, for talking at a distance with speaking trumpets. Other dictionaries give later dates. In 1876, the year Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone, the word was also used in French for the electric machine. Then the word went round the world and came to Greece too. The dictionary of Modern Greek says τηλέφωνο came into Greek from English, or through French.

Few of these words came straight from Greece. Most took a long road through Latin or French. Look at the road each one took.

• telephone: τῆλε and φωνή, joined in modern Europe.
• school: from Greek σχολή, through Latin schola. At first σχολή meant free time! Later it meant time for study, and then a group of learners.
• music: from μουσική, “the art of the Muses”, through Latin musica.
• theatre: from θέατρον, “a place for watching”, through Latin theatrum and French.
• butter: from βούτυρον, through Latin. This one surprises many people.

A good dictionary tells the same kind of story about many other words. Look for the note about where a word comes from. It is called the etymology.

Greek has changed since Homer’s time. Some letters now have new sounds. The letter η sounds like “ee”, φ sounds like f, β sounds like v, and θ is like the first sound of English thin. The dictionary writes the sounds of these words like this:

• τηλέφωνο [tiléfono]: telephone
• σχολείο [sxolío]: school
• μουσική [musikí]: music
• θέατρο [θéatro]: theatre
• βιβλίο [vivlío]: book

The small mark over a vowel shows the strong syllable: τηλέφωνο is stressed on λέ. Your language may stress the word in another place. Tap each word and say it after the voice. Notice that σχολείο is not the same as σχολή. Today a σχολή is usually a part of a university, and children go to a σχολείο.

Some words have nothing to do with Greek. The Greek word for book is βιβλίο, from ancient βιβλίον. It gave English Bible and bibliography. But the English word book is not Greek at all: it is an old Germanic word.

Other languages also chose differently. Finnish says puhelin for telephone, made from a Finnish verb. Chinese says 电话, made from Chinese characters. So do not guess! Greek words can also hide where you do not expect them, like butter. Two more words from this page’s list work in the same way: ἀριθμός, “number”, is behind English arithmetic, and γράφω, “I write”, is behind English telegraph. Greeks today still say αριθμός and γράφω.