Latin And Greek Prefixes And Suffixes
Pinkie Mclucas
I have to be honest: I am a full-on history nerd. As an undergrad, I was a religious studies and history major. I always knew I would end up a teacher, but I was 19 and loved learning about history. Perhaps not my smartest move, but it was definitely an interesting time as a student. Several years ago, my husband and I went to Europe for the first time in our lives. My two requests? I wanted to see where Anne Boleyn was beheaded and where Sophie Scholl was buried, my two favorite women in history.
Anglo-Saxon words can be identified in a variety of ways. They tend to be one-syllable words, and many words have to do with things like colors, numbers, work, and body parts. Almost all vowel teams can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon. In modern English, the terms long and short vowel have nothing to do with the duration of the sound. In Anglo-Saxon English, however, they actually did indicate the duration of the vowel sound!
Remember world history class when we learned about William the Conqueror? His conquest of the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 marked the entrance of French into the English language. French became the language of law, government, and religion: essentially, the language of power. Anglo-Saxon was reserved for the lower classes. French is where it gets kind of murky, though. So much of French is also derived from Latin. So when we talk about French entering our language, it was also Latin entering our language.
Some unique spellings persist from French. When ch represents the /sh/ sound, that is French (think Charlemagne, Charlotte, Chicago, machine). The que representing /k/ is also a French spelling (unique, antique, boutique). Another French spelling that has persisted is the ou representing the /ew/ sound (youth, soup). Additionally, those closed syllable exceptions that stress us out also come from French: waste, taste, haste. They have no business making a long vowel sound, until you realize that this is simply a holdover from this time.
The key to understanding Latin is understanding multisyllabic words. This is why morphology is so important. If we do not teach children Latin prefixes, suffixes, and roots, we are denying them access to a great deal of our language. We cannot just leave to chance that they will learn them. Once we teach Latin prefixes, suffixes, and roots, students will be able to use word parts to understand unknown words. (Think, if you know that dict means to speak, then dictation, dictator, contradict, valedictorian, etc all become more accessible.)
Even today, we often use Greek forms when creating new words in certain disciplines like science, mathematics, and philosophy. We tend to talk about Greek combining forms instead of Greek prefixes, suffixes, and affixes. This is because they are often not clearly defined as only occurring in one position.
Wow. This is my longest blog post in a while. I told yall I was a history nerd. So why even write this post? Does it actually matter? In short, I think it matters more than we were led to believe. When we arm ourselves with the layers of English, we are essentially giving ourselves a cheat sheet into all things English. And when we are better armed with knowledge, our students reap the benefits.
A system of words, medical terminology can contain a prefix, root word, a combining vowel and a suffix to create medical terms. Medical terms describe medical aspects and diseases. Specific locations on the body are indicated by prefixes. The meanings of medical terms change with different beginnings and endings. Medical terms can contain multiple root words, combining vowels etc. A physician must be very precise when dictating a term. If a letter or word is misused or inadvertently changes, the result could be unnecessary tests and appointments. In addition, an unnecessary treatment or an incorrect diagnosis could occur. The rules that specify how the multitude of roots, prefixes, and suffixes can be combined are generally based in Latin.
Many technical terms used in paleobotany and structural botany do not form plurals in the standard English way (by adding "-s" or "-es"). Rather, they transform in other ways. For example, a single sporangium (spore-producing structure) becomes plural sporangia, not sporangiums. Why is this? It is because many terms follow Latin, and less commonly Greek, rules for forming plurals.
Latin has five declensions (categories) and three genders (feminine, masculine, and neuter) of nouns. Each declension follows different rules for forming plurals, which is done by changing word endings. In declensions where word gender varies, word endings are additionally determined by gender. Word endings also vary by the role of the word in a sentence (for example, subject, object, possessive, etc.). All of this may seem a bit confusing to an English speaker. However, you do not have to be a Latin scholar to use Latin nouns in English. Many Latin words used in English (whether truly taken from classical Latin, created later, or Latinized) follow the structure of first and second declension Latin nouns in the nominative case. The nominative case is the form a noun takes when used as the subject of a sentence.
The word genus (the taxonomic rank above the species) does not follow the rules above, even though one might assume that it should take an "-i" in its plural form. Instead, it becomes genera in the plural. This is because the word "genus" is a 3rd declension neuter Latin noun. Its plural is made by adding an "-a" to the root for the word genus ("gener-").
You can consult an English dictionary for a summary of the Latin and Greek singular and plural noun forms frequently encountered in English. You can also look up individual words in order to find their plural forms. Note that the Latin/Greek or English plural form can be used for some terms (for example, cactus can become cacti or cactuses in the plural). In scientific writing, Latin and Greek endings are often the ones favored, although exceptions exist. For example, the word stigma (the pollen-receiving part of a flower's carpel or pistil) commonly takes the plural form stigmas rather than stigmata in botany.
Singular endingPlural endingWord formPlant vocabulary examplesOther examples-a-aeLatingemma, gemmaealumna, alumnae; larva, larvae-ex, -ix-icesLatinapex, apicesindex, indices; matrix, matrices-ies-iesLatinspecies, speciesseries, series-is-esLatinsymbiosis, symbiosesanalysis, analyses-ma-mataGreekstoma, stomataschema, schemata-on-aGreektaxon, taxaphenomenon, phenomena-um-aLatinantheridium, antheridiadatum, data-us-iLatinstrobilus, strobilialumnus, alumni
Scientific terminology can seem like a bunch of intimidating jargon. Many scientific terms, however, are made up of building blocks that have Greek, or sometimes Latin, roots. If you can recognize these building blocks and understand their meanings, it becomes easier to understand and learn scientific terms.
The table below lists some prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms that commonly show up in structural botany and paleobotany, along with examples of terms in which they appear. You can use this table to help you remember (or even figure out) the meanings of terms. As an example, let's look at the term "megasporophyll." It consists of three building blocks; we can find the meanings of these building blocks by consulting the table below:
Thus, mega + sporo + phyll = large-spore leaf. In fact, a megasporophyll is a leaf that bears structures that produce large spores (megaspores) in heterosporous plants. What is a heterosporous plant?
Thus, a hetero + sporous plant is a different-spore plant. Specifically, it is a plant that produces two types of spores: microspores and megaspores. Using the table below, can you figure out what a microspore is? How does it differ from a megaspore?
Some notes on the table: Definitions, word origins, etc., have been simplified. For prefixes ending in "a" or "o", the "a" or "o" may be dropped before a vowel; the modified prefix shown in parentheses.
2002. A dictionary of prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms from Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, unabridged. Merriam-Webster, Springfield, Massachusetts. [PDF distributed by Scripps National Spelling Bee, spellingbee.com]Content usageUsage of text and images created for DEAL: Text on this page was written by Elizabeth J. Hermsen. Original written content created by E.J. Hermsen for the Digital Encyclopedia of Ancient Life that appears on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Original images and diagrams created by E.J. Hermsen or J.R. Hendricks are also licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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