Say a word that starts with latin and ends with greek? To name a plant, or animal or object or state of being or religion?
I ask this question because the Scientology website says:
The word Scientology literally means "the study of truth." It comes from the Latin word "scio" meaning "knowing in the fullest sense of the word" and the Greek word "logos" meaning "study of."
It struck me as odd that languages were mixed.
Any other examples of neologisms constructed using diverse linguistic etymology?
It is a mix of two peoples. It is the all round study of truth, no matter the perspective. Mixing languages is not all that bad of a thing. I am and will always be a happy member.
February 8th, 2010 at 5:56 am
no, it’s not usual, but L. Ron Hubbard wasn’t creating a scientific word. Hubbard was a nut.
Most of the sciences have Greek names because it was the Greeks who separated them into various fields. The Romans just kept that tradition.
In zoology, Greek and Latin are both used, one for genus, the other for species, but not combined into the same word. In modern days you can use any word besides, you don’t have to use greek or latin. A decade ago a scientist named some antibiotic chemicals he found in frogs "magainins" which is from Hebrew, he did it because there were no Hebrew science words that he knew of.
The use of both Greek and Latin in science is eventually going to be a relic of history. Greek was preserved because it was absorbed into the Roman Empire, and Latin was preserved because the Catholic church dominated Europe until a few centuries ago. Now that science is worldwide, people won’t care what language used to be used for knowledge. For a scientist in Japan, it’s enough trouble to learn English, having to learn Latin also is a waste of time. It made sense when scientists were only doing their work in Europe, but it doesn’t make sense for the whole world.
I don’t want to think of any other hybrid English words, there are already too many. Over a million words, it’s ridiculous. But it does remind me of an inbred word that I hate, the word "underneath" which means exactly the same as "under" and "beneath" which themselves mean exactly the same thing.
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February 8th, 2010 at 6:44 am
I agree with the guy above but I’ll add a bit more:
An other reason that Greek is used for scientific word creating is because Greek is very flexible and it has a very efficient way of combining with other languages and making new words.
Here are a couple Greek-latin words
Television
Telecontrol
Radiophone
Aquaphobia
etc
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February 8th, 2010 at 6:51 am
It is a mix of two peoples. It is the all round study of truth, no matter the perspective. Mixing languages is not all that bad of a thing. I am and will always be a happy member.
References :
February 8th, 2010 at 7:17 am
In scientific terminology, it happens all the time–and quite a bit in non-scientific, too! In fact, the third word I used in this answer is an example.
References :
Retired English professor who majored in Latin and had five semesters of Greek.