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Most English words beginning with p are of foreign origin, primarily French, Latin and Greek; these languages preserve the Proto-Indo-European initial *p. Native English cognates of such words often start with f , since English is a Germanic language and thus has undergone Grimm's law; a native English word with an initial /p/ would reflect ...
Root Meaning in English Origin language Etymology (root origin) English examples pac-peace: Latin: pax, pacis: appease, Pacific, pacify, pay pach-[1]thick: Greek: παχύς (pakhús), πάχος, πάχεος (pákhos, pákheos)
The following is an alphabetical list of Greek and Latin roots, stems, and prefixes commonly used in the English language from P to Z. See also the lists from A to G and from H to O . Some of those used in medicine and medical technology are not listed here but instead in the entry for List of medical roots, suffixes and prefixes .
Since the start of the name of a letter was expected to be the sound of the letter (the acrophonic principle), in Greek these letters came to be used for vowels. For example, the Greeks had no glottal stop or voiced pharyngeal sounds, so the Phoenician letters ’alep and `ayin became Greek alpha and o (later renamed omicron ), and stood for ...
The fortis–lenis contrast may be transcribed as a gemination contrast ([pː tː kː fː sː ʃː xː] or [pp tt kk ff ss ʃʃ xx] vs [p t k f s ʃ x]). The fortis–lenis contrast may be transcribed as [p t k f s ʃ x] vs [b̥ d̥ ɡ̊ v̥ z̥ ʒ̊ ɣ̊], that is, the lenes are marked with the IPA diacritic
For example, when representing a vowel, y represents the sound /ɪ/ in some words borrowed from Greek (reflecting an original upsilon), whereas the letter usually representing this sound in non-Greek words is the letter i . Thus, myth / ˈ m ɪ θ / is of Greek origin, while pith / ˈ p ɪ θ / is a Germanic word.
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The consonant sounds represented by the letters W and Y in English (/w/ and /j/ as in went /wɛnt/ and yes /jɛs/) are referred to as semi-vowels (or glides) by linguists, however this is a description that applies to the sounds represented by the letters and not to the letters themselves.