What percentage of English words come from greek words?

Answer 1

Greek has contributed to English in several ways, including direct borrowings from Greek and indirectly through other languages (mainly Latin or French).

In a typical 80,000-word English dictionary, about 5% of the words are directly borrowed from Greek; this is about equivalent to the vocabulary of an educated speaker of English (for example, "phenomenon" is a Greek word and even obeys Greek grammar rules as the plural is "phenomena"). However, around 25% are borrowed indirectly. This is because there were many Greek words borrowed in Latin originally, which then filtered down into English because English borrowed so many words from Latin (for example, "elaiwa" in Greek evolved into the Latin "oliva", which in turn became "olive" in English).

Greek is often used in coining very specialized technical or scientific words, however, so the percentage of words borrowed from Greek rises much higher when considering highly scientific vocabulary (for example, "oxytetracycline" is a medical term that has several Greek roots).

Answer 2

Depending on the source, sample size, and what the term "Latin" means. From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

Source: Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.)

Sample Size: 80,000 words

What is included in the meaning "Latin":

• Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%
  
• Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
  

Source: A survey by Joseph M. Williams in Origins of the English Language

Sample Size: 10,000 words

What is included in the meaning "Latin":

• Latin
  

Answer 3

It is estimated that about 6% of English words have Greek origins. Many of these words were adopted into English from ancient Greek through Latin.