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Classical Liberal Arts Academy

Classical Vocabulary I

Lesson 01.  Of Persons

Before you begin:  Each lesson in the Classical Vocabulary program has four or five parts:  a Lesson, Memory Work, Dictionary Exercise, Transliteration Exercise, and Examination.  Transliteration are required only for students also in Classical Grammar.  When you have completed the assignments for this lesson, you can complete your lesson examination.  If you don't pass your examination, go back, review and try it again.  This page is designed to be printed for use away from the computer.

1.  Lesson

Directions:  Read the following lesson carefully.  You must know everything in it to pass your lesson examination.

This first lesson introduces us to the names of various people we meet with in the course of a day.  Though we meet with thousands of people in our lives, they can be placed into a few groups by age:  infant, boy or girl, young man or young lady, man or woman, old man or old woman.  Thus, by learning these names we can refer to anyone we see.  The old image on the right shows the path we take through life--from the cradle on the left to old age on the right. 

By the end of this lesson we will see how important it is to know simple names in Latin and Greek and how many English words are derived from them.  For example, the Greek word anthropos (human being) provides us with the English word anthropology (the study of human beings) while the Latin word puer (child) provides us with the English word puerile (childish).  A student who learns English derivatives has but a few leaves, while the student who learns the Latin and Greek primitives gains the whole tree--and all the leaves with it. 

2.  Memory Work

Directions:  Read each English word, then the Latin and Greek.  Be sure to pronounce the Latin and Greek words with classical pronunciation.  If you are not familiar with classical pronunciation, contact your instructor for help.  By daily repetition, thoroughly memorize this list. 

The following pronunciation guide will help you to master the right sound of each word and help you with memorization and spelling.  The link will open in a new window.

Lesson 01 Pronunciation Guide (mp3, 2.5 MB)

3.  Lesson Exercises

1.  Dictionary Exercises
Mastery of vocabulary takes practice, and the writer's best friend is a good dictionary--and the best dictionary of all is the Oxford English Dictionary.  Copy each word onto a sheet of paper, then look it up in a good dictionary.  Read the definitions for the word and then explain the relationship between the definition and the Latin or Greek words from which the English word is derived.  Knowledge of these words is required for your lesson examination.

Note:  As a CLAA student, you have free access to the Oxford English Dictionary online.  Simply enter the username:  oedclaa and password oedclaa.  The American Heritage College Dictionary may also be used for this course.

2.  Transliteration Exercises
Latin and Greek words have other forms, which are often used in English words.  The reason for this is that the stem of a Latin or Greek word does not come from its dictionary form.  For example, the stem of the Greek word pais is paid-. Worse, when transliterated from Greek into English (see chart below), paid- becomes ped-.  The English word  pediatrician is composed of two Greek words:   ped (child) and hiatros (doctor).  So, while some knowledge of Latin and Greek is helpful for English vocabulary, it is not as simple as many pretend!  It takes some knowledge of the languages beyond mere word memorization, which comes through your classical Grammar studies.

The following chart shows how Greek letters are turned into English letters.  This is called "transliteration" (trans-lit-ur-AY-shun) which means "letter-changing". 

Copy each of the Greek words in your vocabulary list above.  Then, next to each word write the word using Greek letters 5 times.  A transliteration chart is given below to help you.  Please note that the letter sigma has two forms. The second form is used whenever sigma is the final letter in a word and is called "final sigma".

4.  Lesson Examination

Directions:  When you have completed all of your assignments above, complete your lesson exam.  By completing this exam, you claim to have completed all of the assignments a directed above.

Complete Lesson 01 Examination.