We continue research on this issue in general and particularly as well on how the existence of a plenty of such words can be used in teaching the Greek language to foreigners.
We remind that on this idea is based our very successful book: “You Speak Greek Already” which is a product of our cooperation with European Universities and Classical Schools. The project was co-funded by the European Union.
The only problem for our students is how to understand that a word they know is Greek and then how to use it as a beginning for further search.
One of our recent students from the USA, who had worked in the aviation industry, was surprised when he heard at our introductory meeting that the word airplane comes from two very old (homeric) Greek words ὰήρ (air) and πλάνης – πλανῶμαι (plane) and that this is related to so many others which have the same origin, including the word planet – πλανήτης.
It is noteworthy that in all languages circulate books with such content e.g. Greek words in the French language (Le Tresor des racines qreque dans la langue francaise) etc.
