Etymology Course

Lesson 1 • Primary Sources for Word Histories

Surveys dictionaries, corpora, and historical texts used to trace word origins. Students learn to evaluate source reliability and date of attestation.

Lesson 2 • What Etymology Is and Does

Defines etymology as the study of word origins and historical form changes. Establishes why tracing word history matters for comprehension and communication.

Lesson 3 • The Life Cycle of a Word

Traces how words are born, evolve, and sometimes die across time. Connects word life cycles to broader cultural and social change.

Lesson 1 • Major Indo-European Branches

Surveys Germanic, Romance, Hellenic, Slavic, and Indo-Iranian branches. Students connect branch membership to the English words they will analyze.

Lesson 2 • Non-Indo-European Influences on English

Identifies Semitic, Turkic, Dravidian, and other non-IE sources in English vocabulary. Broadens students' awareness beyond the IE family for complete etymological analysis.

Lesson 3 • Proto-Indo-European Overview

Introduces the reconstructed ancestor language underlying most European and South Asian languages. Students understand how reconstruction works from comparative evidence.

Lesson 1 • Latin Prefixes and Their Meanings

Analyzes prefixes such as pre-, sub-, inter-, trans-, and con- that modify root meaning. Students predict word meaning by combining prefix and root knowledge.

Lesson 2 • Latin in Professional Domains

Applies Latin etymology to legal, medical, and scientific terminology in context. Students practice decoding domain-specific vocabulary using root-prefix-suffix analysis.

Lesson 3 • Latin's Path into English

Traces three waves of Latin entry: Roman contact, Christian church, and Renaissance scholarship. Understanding these waves explains why Latin words cluster in specific domains.

Lesson 4 • High-Frequency Latin Roots

Drills the most productive Latin roots—vert, port, duc, scrib, spec—with English derivatives. Mastery of these roots unlocks thousands of professional terms.

Lesson 1 • Greek's Entry into English

Traces Greek borrowings through Latin intermediaries and direct Renaissance adoption. Students distinguish direct Greek loans from Latin-mediated forms.

Lesson 2 • High-Frequency Greek Roots

Drills productive Greek roots—graph, log, bio, path, chron, geo—with English derivatives. These roots dominate academic and scientific vocabulary across disciplines.

Lesson 3 • Greek Suffixes and Nomenclature

Covers suffixes such as -ology, -itis, -osis, -ism, and -ist that structure academic and clinical terms. Students apply suffix knowledge to interpret discipline-specific vocabulary.

Lesson 1 • Old English Word Formation

Examines compounding and affixation as the primary Old English word-building strategies. Students trace these strategies into modern English compound words.

Lesson 2 • Norse Influence on English

Analyzes Old Norse loans introduced during Viking settlement, including pronouns and everyday verbs. Students distinguish Norse from Old English forms using phonological clues.

Lesson 3 • Core Old English Vocabulary

Identifies the high-frequency Old English words that form the backbone of everyday speech. Students see why Germanic words feel simpler and more direct than Latinate alternatives.

Lesson 4 • Old English and Its Germanic Relatives

Situates Old English within the West Germanic branch alongside Dutch and German. Students recognize cognate patterns that reveal shared ancestry.

Lesson 1 • Morphological Analysis Practice

Applies all word-building concepts to authentic professional texts from multiple fields. Students build speed and accuracy in real-time morphological parsing.

Lesson 2 • Conversion and Back-Formation

Examines how words shift grammatical category without affixation and how back-formation creates new roots. Students identify these processes in professional and technical vocabulary.

Lesson 3 • Segmenting Words into Morphemes

Teaches a step-by-step procedure for identifying roots, prefixes, and suffixes in any word. Accurate segmentation is the foundation of all etymological analysis.

Lesson 4 • Compounding and Blending

Analyzes compound words and blends as distinct word-formation processes with etymological implications. Students trace the origins of both elements in a compound.

Lesson 1 • False Friends and Semantic Traps

Identifies words whose current meaning diverges sharply from their etymological meaning. Students avoid misreading historical documents and cross-language false cognates.

Lesson 2 • Social and Cultural Drivers of Change

Links semantic shifts to technology, politics, religion, and social attitudes. Students explain why specific words changed meaning in their historical context.

Lesson 3 • Types of Semantic Change

Classifies semantic change into broadening, narrowing, amelioration, pejoration, and metaphor. Students apply each category to documented English examples.

Lesson 1 • Etymology for Vocabulary Acquisition

Designs root-based learning systems that accelerate professional vocabulary growth. Students build personal root maps and spaced-repetition study plans.

Lesson 2 • Decoding Unfamiliar Technical Terms

Applies morphological and etymological analysis to decode unknown terms on first encounter. Students practice with authentic texts from medicine, law, and engineering.

Lesson 3 • Presenting Etymological Research

Guides students in communicating word-history findings to non-specialist audiences. Students deliver a structured presentation with visual etymology aids.

Lesson 4 • Etymology in Plain-Language Communication

Uses etymological insight to simplify jargon and improve clarity in workplace documents. Students revise dense professional texts using root-level understanding.