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Neoclassical compounds arecompound words composed from combining forms (which act asaffixes orstems) derived fromclassical languages (classical Latin orancient Greek)roots.Neo-Latin comprises many such words and is a substantial component of thetechnical andscientificlexicon ofEnglish and other languages, viainternational scientific vocabulary (ISV). For example, Greekbio- combines with-graphy to formbiography ("life" + "writing/recording").
Neoclassical compounds represent a significant source ofNeo-Latin vocabulary. Moreover, since these words are composed fromclassical languages whose prestige is or was respected throughout the Western European culture, these words typically appear in many different languages. Their widespread use makestechnical writing generally accessible to readers who may only have a smattering of the language in which it appears.
Not all European languages have been equally receptive to neoclassical technical compounds.German andRussian, for instance, have historically attempted to create their own technical vocabularies from native elements. Usually, these creations are German and Russiancalques on the international vocabulary, such asWasserstoff and "водород" (vodoród) forhydrogen. Like any exercise inlanguage prescription, this endeavour has been only partially successful, so while official German may still speak of aFernsprecher, publictelephones will be labelled with the internationally recognizedTelefon.
These words are compounds formed from Latin and Ancient Greek root words. Ancient Greek words are almost invariably romanized (seetransliteration of Ancient Greek into English). In English:
Thus, for example, Ancient Greekσφιγξ becomes English (and Latin)sphinx. Exceptions to these romanizing rules occur, such asleukemia (leukaemia); compareleukocyte, alsoleucocyte. In Latin, and in the target languages, the Greek vowels are given their neoclassical values rather than their contemporary values indemotic Greek.
Ancient Greek words often containconsonant clusters which are foreign to thephonology of contemporary English and other languages that incorporate these words into their lexicon:diphthong;pneumatology,phthisis. The traditional response in English is to treat the unfamiliar cluster as containing one or moresilent letters and suppress their pronunciation, moremodern speakers tend to try and pronounce the unusual cluster. This adds to the irregularities ofEnglish spelling; moreover, since many of these words are encountered in writing more often than they are heard spoken, it introduces uncertainty as to how to pronounce them when encountered.
Neoclassical compounds frequently vary their stressed syllable whensuffixes are added:ágriculture, agricúltural. This also gives rise to uncertainty when these words are encountered in print. Once a classical compound has been created andborrowed, it typically becomes the foundation of a whole series of related words: e.g.astrology, astrological, astrologer/astrologist/astrologian, astrologism.
Mainstream medical and ISV pronunciation in English is not the same asClassical Latin pronunciation. LikeEcclesiastical Latin, it has a regularity of its own, and individual sounds can be mapped or compared. Although the Classical Latin pronunciation ofvenae cavae would be approximately/ˈwɛnaɪˈkɑːwaɪ/, the standard English medical pronunciation is/ˈviːniːˈkeɪviː/.
| letter ordigraph | Restored Pronunciation in English of Latin (default) | Medical/ISV pronunciation in English (default) | Example term |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | /ɑː/ | /eɪ/ | ramus (/ˈreɪməs/) |
| ae | /aɪ/ | /iː/ | hyphae (/ˈhaɪfi/) |
| e | /eɪ/ | /iː/ | mesial (/ˈmiːsiəl/) |
| i | /iː/ | /aɪ/ | sinus (/ˈsaɪnəs/) |
English began incorporating many of these words in the sixteenth century;geography first appeared in an English text in 1535. Other early adopted words that still survive includemystagogue, from the 1540s, andandrogyne, from the 1550s. The use of these technical terms predates thescientific method; the several varieties ofdivination all take their names from neoclassical compounds, such asalectryomancy, divination by the pecking ofchickens.
Not all English writers have been friendly to the inflow of classical vocabulary. The Tudor period writer SirJohn Cheke wrote:
I am of this opinion that our own tung should be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borrowing of other tunges; wherein if we take not heed by tiim, ever borowing and never paying, she shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt.
and therefore rejected what he called "inkhorn terms".
Similar sentiments moved the nineteenth century authorWilliam Barnes to write "pure English," in which he avoided Greco-Latin words and foundAnglo-Saxon equivalents for them: for Barnes, the newly invented art of thephotograph became asun-print. Unlike this one, some of Barnes's coinages caught on, such asforeword, Barnes's replacement for thepreface of a book. Later,Poul Anderson wrote a jocular piece calledUncleftish Beholding in aconstructed language based on English which others have called "Ander-Saxon"; this attempted to create a pure English vocabulary fornuclear physics. For more information, seeLinguistic purism in English.
Many such words, such asthermometer,dinosaur,rhinoceros, andrhododendron, are thoroughly incorporated into the English lexicon and are the ordinary words for their referents. Some are prone tocolloquial shortening;rhinoceros often becomesrhino. Thebinomial nomenclature oftaxonomy andbiology is a major source for these items of vocabulary; for many unfamiliar species that lack a common English name, the name of thegenus becomes the English word for that life form.
In themetric system, prefixes that indicatemultipliers are typically Greek in origin, such askilogram, while those that indicatedivisors are Latin, as inmillimeter: the base roots resemble Greek words, but in truth areneologisms. These metric and other suffixes are added to native English roots as well, resulting in creations such asgigabyte. Words of mixed Latin and Greek lineage, or words that combine elements of the classical languages with English – so-calledhybrid words – were formerly castigated as "barbarisms" byprescriptionist usage commentators; this disapproval has mostly abated. Indeed, in scientific nomenclature, even more exotic hybrids have appeared, such as for example the dinosaurYangchuanosaurus. Personalnames appear in some scientific names such asFuchsia.
Neoclassical compounds are sometimes used to lend grandeur or the impression of scientific rigour to humble pursuits: the study ofcosmetology will not help anyone become anastronaut. Compounds along these models are also sometimes coined for humorous effect, such asodontopodology, the science of putting your foot into your mouth. These humorous coinages sometimes take on a life of their own, such asgarbology, the study ofgarbage.
Some neoclassical compounds formclassical plurals, and are therefore irregular in English. Others do not, while some vacillate between classical and regular plurals.
There are hundreds of neoclassical compounds in English and other European languages. As traditionally defined, combining forms cannot stand alone as free words, but there are many exceptions to this rule, and in the late 20th century such forms are increasingly used independently:bio as a clipping ofbiography,telly as a respelt clipping oftelevision. Most neoclassical combining forms translate readily into everyday language, especially nouns:bio- as 'life'-graphy as 'writing, description'.
Because of this, the compounds of which they are part (usuallyclassical orlearned compounds) can be more or less straightforwardly paraphrased:biography as 'writing about a life',neurology as 'the study of the nervous system'. Many classical combining forms are designed to take initial or final position:autobiography has the two initial or preposed formsauto- andbio-, and one postposed form-graphy. Although most occupy one position or the other, some can occupy both:-graph- as ingraphology andmonograph;-phil- as inphilology andAnglophile. Occasionally, the same base is repeated in one word:logology the study of words,phobophobia the fear of fear.
Prefixes include:aero- air,crypto- hidden,demo- people,geo- earth,odonto- tooth,ornitho- bird,thalasso- sea. Many have both a traditional simple meaning and a modern telescopic meaning: inbiology,bio- means 'life', but inbio-degradable it telescopes 'biologically'; althoughhypno- basically means 'sleep' (hypnopaedia learning through sleep), it also stands for 'hypnosis' (hypnotherapy cure through hypnosis).
When a form stands alone as a present-day word, it is usually a telescopic abbreviation:bio biography,chemo chemotherapy,hydro hydroelectricity,metro metropolitan. Some telescoped forms are shorter than the original neoclassical combining form:gynie is shorter thangyneco- and stands for bothgynecology andgynecologist;anthro is shorter thananthropo- and stands foranthropology.
Suffixes include:-ectomy cutting out,-graphy writing, description,-kinesis motion,-logy study,-mancy divination,-onym name,-phagy eating,-phony sound,-therapy healing,-tomy cutting. They are generally listed in dictionaries without the interfixed vowel, which appears however in such casual phrases as 'ologies and isms'.
Some classical combining forms are variants of one base.
Some are also free words, such asmania indipsomania andphobia inclaustrophobia.
Some are composites of other elements, such asencephalo- brain, fromen- in,-cephal- head; and-ectomy cutting out, fromec- out,-tom- cut,-y, a noun-forming suffix that means "process of".
In Greek and Latin grammar, combining bases usually require a thematic or stem-forming vowel. Inbiography, from Greek, the thematic is -o-; inagriculture, from Latin, it is-i-. In English morphology, this vowel can be considered as aninterfix: in biology, the interfix-o-; inminiskirt, the interfix-i-. It is usually regarded as attached to the initial base (bio-,mini-) rather than the final base (-graphy,-skirt), but in forms where it is conventionallystressed, it is sometimes considered as part of the final base (-ography,-ology). If the final element begins with a vowel (for example,-archy as inmonarchy), the mediating vowel has traditionally been avoided (not *monoarchy), but in recent coinages it is often kept, sometimes accompanied by a hyphen (auto-analysis,bioenergy,hydroelectricity, not *autanalysis, *bienergy, *hydrelectricity).
Its presence helps to distinguish neoclassical compounds likebiography andagriculture from vernacular compounds liketeapot andblackbird.[citation needed]
Generally, English has acquired its neoclassical compounds in three ways: through French from Latin and Greek, directly from Latin and Greek, and by coinage in English on Greek and Latin patterns. An exception isschizophrenia, which came into English through German, and is therefore pronounced 'skitso', not 'skyzo'.
Most dictionaries follow theOxford English Dictionary in usingcombining form (comb. form) to label such classical elements. In appendices to dictionaries and grammar books, classical combining forms are often loosely referred to as roots or affixes: 'a logo …, properly speaking, is not a word at all but a prefix meaning word and short for logogram, a symbol, much as telly is short for television' (MontrealGazette, 13 Apr. 1981). They are often referred to as affixes because some come first and some come last. But if they wereaffixes proper, a word likebiography would have no base whatever.
While affixes are grammatical (like prepositions), classical combining forms arelexical (like nouns, adjectives, and verbs): for example,bio- translates as a noun (life),-graphy as a verbal noun (writing). This is why some reference works also call themstems. They are also often loosely called roots because they are ancient and have a basic role in word formation, but functionally and often structurally they are distinct fromroots proper: the-graph inautograph is both a root and a classical combining form, while the-graphy incryptography consists of root-graph- and suffix-y, and is only a classical combining form.
From theRenaissance until the mid-20th century, the concept of derivational purity has often regulated the use of classical compounds, with aphilological goal of like with like (Greek with Greek, Latin with Latin) and a minimum ofhybridization. For example,biography is Greek,agriculture Latin; but this ideal has seen only limited realization in practice, as for example the wordtelevision is a hybrid of Greektele- and Latin-vision (probably so coined because the 'pure' formtelescope had already been adopted for another purpose).
Generally, classical compounds were a closed system from the 16th century to the earlier 20th century: the people who used them wereclassically educated, their teachers and exemplars generally took a purist's view on their use, contexts of use were mainly technical, and there was relatively little seepage into the language at large. However, with the decline of classical education and the spread of technical and quasitechnical jargon in the media, a continuum has evolved, with at least five stages:
In the older sciences, classical combining forms are generally used to form such strictly classical and usually Greek compounds asanthocyanin,astrobleme,chemotherapy,chronobiology,cytokinesis,glossolalia,lalophobia,narcolepsy,osteoporosis,Pliohippus,sympathomimetic.
In technical, semitechnical, and quasitechnical usage at large, coiners of compounds increasingly treat Latin and Greek as one resource to produce such forms asaccelerometer,aero-generator,bioprospector,communicology,electroconductive,futurology,mammography,micro-gravity,neoliberal,Scientology,servomechanism.
In the later 20th century, many forms have cut loose from ancient moorings:crypto- as in preposedCrypto-Fascist andpseudo- as inpseudoradical; postposed-meter inspeedometer,clapometer. Processes of analogy have created coinages likepetrodollar,psycho-warfare,microwave on such models aspetrochemical,psychology,microscope. Such stunt usages aseco-doom,eco-fears,eco-freaks, common in journalism, often employ classical combining forms telescopically:eco- standing forecology andecological and not as used ineconomics. In such matters, precision of meaning is secondary to compactness and vividness of expression.
In recent years, the orthography of many word forms has changed, usually without affecting pronunciation and stress. The same spoken usage may be writtenmicro-missile,micro missile,micromissile, reflecting the same uncertainty or flexibility as inbusinessman,business-man,business man. When used in such ways, classical compounds are often telescopic:Hydro substation Hydro-Electricity Board substation,Metro highways Metropolitan highways,porno cult pornography cult.
The mix of late 20th century techno-commercial coinages includes three groups of post- and non-classical forms:
In East Asia, a similar role to Latin and Greek has been played by Chinese, with non-Chinese languages both borrowing a significant number of words from Chinese and using morphemes borrowed from Chinese to coin new words, particularly in formal or technical language. SeeSino-Japanese vocabulary andSino-Korean vocabulary for discussion.
The coinage of new native terms on Chinese roots is most notable in Japanese, where it is referred to aswasei kango (和製漢語; Japanese-made Chinese words). Many of these have been subsequently borrowed into Chinese and Korean with the same (or corresponding) characters being pronounced differently according to language, just as happens in European languages – compare Englishbiology and Frenchbiologie.
For example, 自動車 (Japanesejidōsha, Koreanjadongcha, Mandarinzìdòngchē) is a Japanese-coined word meaning "automobile", literally self-move-car; compare toauto (self) +mobile (moving).
The dictionary definition ofAppendix:English nationality prefixes at Wiktionary
