Whether you are a “peasant” or a “barbarian,” or are from “Africa” or the “Arctic,” your world—and words—have a Greek connection. “Culture,” however, has more of a Latin beat.

Africa

In ancient times there was much trade between the lands with coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea. Although the Romans did not known how far the lands along the southern border of the sea extended inland, they knew well the hot, sunny climate of the area. They called the land Africa, most likely a derivative of their adjective aprica, which is Latin for “sunny.” The Latin term can be traced to the Greek word aphrike, meaning “without cold.” The Greeks also knew the hot climate of northern Africa.

Africa is the second largest continent in the world, second only to Asia. Thirteen percent of the world’s population lives in Africa.

Arctic

To chart their course across the seas, the ancient mariners relied heavily on the stars, the movements of the constellations, and the position of the sun. To the north, they observed a group of stars whose configuration suggested the shape of a bear. To name this constellation, known today as Ursa Major (Greater Bear), the ancient Greeks used their term arktikos (“of the bear”). Through the years, arktikos came to refer to the northern regions of the earth. English altered the spelling to “arctic.”

Barbarian

To the Greeks, all non-Greeks were barbaros, meaning “foreign” or “strange.” While the origin of the word barbaros is still a mystery, many etymologists think that the term repeats the phrase the Greeks used to imitate the sound of words spoken by non-Greeks: bar bar. Today, a barbarian is someone who lacks culture.

Brazil

Early European explorers of the Americas discovered that the native people knew how to make a dye extract that produced bright red and deep purple colors. The dye used by the native Americans came from a common tree, known as the brasil. European merchants soon developed a great trade in brasilwood. As a result of the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, the Portuguese claimed the land where these trees grew and named the area Terra de Brasil or “Land of Red-dye Wood.” Soon map makers and others began to refer to the land as Brasil. English later adopted the name and its pronunciation, only changing the spelling to include a “z” instead of an “s.”

When Portuguese explorers led by Pedro Alvares Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal in 1500, there were approximately two million native South Americans.

Canal

This English noun traces its roots to the ancient Greek noun kanna, meaning a “reed” or “tube.” A canal, especially one that is small and narrow, resembles the long, hollow reeds that grow along rivers.

Cataract

Ancient Egypt was surrounded by natural boundaries: the desert to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the east. To the south lay the white-water rapids, or cataracts, of the Nile River. To the immediate south was the First Cataract, and beyond were five more cataracts. Throughout ancient history, few armies dared brave the quickly churning water found there to attack Egypt. When the Greeks encountered these rapids, they called them katarhaktes. Many believe this is a compound of the Greek words kata (“down”) and rhassein (“dash”).

Coast

The English language borrowed the Latin term costa, meaning “rib” or “side,” to form the noun “coast.” A person sailing along the coast is actually sailing along the side of the land.

Culture

Culture may be defined as the ideas, customs, skills, and arts of a people or group that are passed on from generation to generation. By origin, “culture” traces its roots to the Latin verb colere (“to take care of” or “to till the land”) and its participle cultus (“planted” or “cultivated”). Thus, a people’s culture includes all that a people have nurtured and practiced.

Delta

The Greeks gave the name delta to the fourth letter in their alphabet. The shape of a capital delta is a triangle. The Greek letter was eventually used to refer to the land feature that is formed from deposits of sand and silt at the mouth of some rivers, since they are usually triangular in shape.

Egypt

The ancient Egyptians often referred to Memphis, the religious center of the god Ptah, as Hi-ku-ptah, which translates as “mansion of the soul of Ptah.” When the Greeks sought a word to refer to the lands along the Nile, they used an adaptation of this phrase, perhaps because they were familiar with the city of Memphis. In time, the Greek name, Aiguptos, came into English as “Egypt.”

Cairo, the capital of Egypt, is the largest city in North Africa. The Egyptian ruler Menes is credited with uniting lower and upper Egypt into one kingdom around 3050 b.c.

Equator

Derived from the Latin adjective aequus (“equal”), the equator is an imaginary circle around the earth that is equally distant from both the North and South poles.

Ethiopia

The Greeks and Romans used the Greek name Ethiopia to refer to the land south of Egypt. It is a derivative of the Greek word aethiops, which translates as “land of the burnt faces.”

Ethnology

Ethnology is the study of different cultures and the comparison of these cultures. The word “ethnology” is a combination of the Greek noun ethnos, meaning “nation” or “people,” and logos, meaning “word,” “thought,” or “statement.”

Foreign

This word traces its roots to the Latin foras, meaning “out-of-doors.” Just as its roots imply, a foreigner is anyone who lives outside his or her own country, city, or homeland.

In ancient Greece, only men were granted citizenship. Women were considered to be under the care of men. In Greek city-states, foreign residents (both men and women) could acquire the status of metics. They had full civil rights, but they could not own property, legally marry a Greek citizen, or participate in politics.

Geography

The “geo” in “geography” traces its roots to the Greek noun ge, which means “earth.” “Graphy” also traces its origins to a Greek word, graphein, meaning “to write.”

Girl

Etymologists give several possible sources for the word “girl.” One is the Latin noun garrula meaning “a chatterbox.” It is from the Latin verb garrire, which means “to chatter and talk about nothing.” Another is the diminutive form of the Greek noun koure, meaning “a young maiden.” A third possibility is the Old English noun girdle, which meant “a piece of clothing worn by unmarried girls that was loosened at marriage.”

Harem

The Arabic word harim, which means “forbidden” or “sacred,” was first used to connote a holy place. Later, it came to designate the private area where women lived in a Muslim household. Entry into this area was forbidden except to a chosen few. The size of the harem and the number of women, especially wives, depended on the personality and resources of the male head of the household. The harem of most Ottoman rulers was enormous and ornate.

Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, also is known as the “Forbidden City.” It earned this name because of its geographic inaccessibility (at 11,975 feet in the Himalayan Mountains) and because of the reclusive Buddhist monks who lived there.

Infant

The noun “infant” comes from the Latin prefix in, meaning “not,” and the Latin participle fans, meaning “speaking.”

Khmer

“Khmer” refers to both the language of Cambodia and the people who speak it. “Cambodia” is the English translation of the Khmer word Kampuchea, which is a derivative of the Sanskrit word Kambuja, meaning “born of Kambu,” and is also the name of a tribe in northern India. In the myth of Kambu, a naga (“serpent”) king’s daughter marries a foreigner named Kaundinya. To enlarge Kaundinya’s land holdings, the naga king drinks the water covering the area, builds the newlyweds a capital, and changes the name of the land to Kambuja.

Kush

After 1550 b.c., the Egyptians often used the name Kush to refer to Nubia, especially Upper Nubia, an area located to the south of Egypt. The first mention of this name is found on an inscription dating to 1900 b.c. See also Nubia.

Mediterranean

Known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as the Inland Sea because of its geographic location, the Mediterranean Sea was the connecting link in the trade routes of Greece, Carthage, Rome, and the Middle East. In the third century, this body of water was referred to as the Mare Mediterraneum (Latin meaning “Mediterranean Sea”). “Mediterranean” is a compound of the Latin adjective medium, meaning “middle,” and the Latin noun terra, meaning “land.”

Nation

“Nation” traces its roots to the Latin noun natio, meaning “a tribe,” “a race,” or “a people.” To form this term, the Romans used their past participle natus, meaning “having been born,” since natio implied a group of people born in the same area. English adapted the term and broadened its meaning to include various communities of people within one territory and under one government.

“Nationality” refers to the common characteristics that unite a people—language, country of origin, and the like.

Nubia

The exact meaning and derivation of this name is uncertain. In Egyptian, nub means “gold.” Since Upper Nubia was known for its desert gold mines, there may be a connection. See also Kush.

Orient

We use the noun “Orient” (with a capital O) to refer to the countries of East Asia, including China and Japan. It is not, however, an English word, but a Latin one. More than 2,000 years ago, the Romans coined this term from their participle oriens, meaning “rising.” Each morning, they saw the sun, which represented life and good fortune, rising above the lands to their east. To refer to the lands west of Asia, the Romans borrowed the Latin participle occidens meaning “falling,” because the sun set on the lands to the west. The English language also borrowed occidens, but spelled it with a capital O. Occidental refers to the part of the world west of Asia, that is Europe and the Western Hemisphere.

One of the world’s most famous train runs was the Orient Express, which traveled a 1,700-mile route from Paris, France, to Istanbul, Turkey. The train ran from 1883 until 1977. It was restarted in 1982 traveling a different route.

Peasant

The phrase “ancient Rome” brings to mind an image of a civilized metropolis with majestic, marble buildings and temples. This, however, was the Rome of the emperors, not the rural areas or farmlands. The Latin adjective pagus first referred to a district or area removed from the city and then to the countryside itself. The noun paganus denoted a person who lived in the countryside under Roman jurisdiction. Used for centuries by the Romans, the term was adopted by other languages. The French kept its meaning, but changed the spelling to paysan. The English later borrowed this as the base for “peasant.” While the spelling has changed considerably over the centuries, the meaning remains basically the same.

The Peasants’ Revolt was a month-long uprising by English peasants and artisans in 1381. It followed the passage of a law imposing taxes on people rather than property.

Peking man

In 1929, fossilized bones belonging to a primitive human being were found near Peking (today’s Beijing), China. Tests date the fossils to around 475,000 b.c. To label the type of early human who lived during that time, scientists coined the term “Peking man.”

Peninsula

The two Latin roots of “peninsula” are the adverb paene, meaning “almost,” and the noun insula, meaning “island.” Thus, the word “peninsula” describes an area of land surrounded on three sides by water.

There are hundreds of peninsulas located around the world, big and small. Some of the larger and better known include the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Arabian Peninsula, the Yucatan Peninsula, the Florida Peninsula, the Korean Peninsula, and the Iberian Peninsula containing the countries of Spain and Portugal, which is commonly referred to simply as “the Peninsula.”

People

In Latin there are three words that translate into English as “people.” Each has its own distinct connotation and became the root of several English terms. To refer to human beings in general, the Romans used populus, meaning “the people.” English derives a number of words from this root, including “people,” “popular,” “population,” and “depopulate.” Popular means “widely liked” and also “reflecting the taste or wishes of the people at large.” Population is “all the people inhabiting an area.” Depopulate means “to sharply reduce the population.” See also plebe and vulgar.

Plebe

To differentiate between commoners and aristocrats in Roman society, the Romans formed the term plebs to signify the former. Plebs became the basis of the English term “plebe” (“a freshman” or “a first-year student at the U.S. Military or Naval Academy”), as well as plebeian (“characteristic of commoners” or “unrefined in manners”), and plebiscite (“a direct vote by the entire electorate”). See also people and vulgar.

Port

Cities that border rivers, seas, or oceans often become the area’s major trading centers. The continued prosperity of such cities depends on the type of port each has. For example, a deep harbor means large boats are able to dock at the piers and unload their goods. Nearby forests mean a ready supply of wood with which to build trading vessels. In time, “port,” an abbreviated form of the Latin verb portare (“to carry”) became the term for a trading center. See also starboard.

The famous port city of Oporto, Portugal, whose name literally translates as “the port,” gave its name to one of the country’s major exports—port wine.

Public

The English adjective “public,” which means “of or concerning the people,” is a direct derivative of the Latin adjective publicus (“belonging to the people”). Publicus traces its roots to the Latin noun populus (“people”). Some additional derivatives of publicus are publish (“to prepare printed material for public distribution” or “to bring to the attention of the public”) and republic (“a political order in which power lies with the citizens who cast votes for their representatives, who are, in turn, responsible to the citizens”).

Pundit

Today, “pundit” means “an intellectual or stuffy critic or commentator.” News reporters often refer to people who make judgments about national and international situations as political pundits. The word traces it origins to the Sanskrit term pandita, meaning “a learned man.” For Hindus, pandit refers to a person who is well-versed in Sanskrit and the philosophy, law, and religion.

Refugee

“Refugee” is an English version of a French word. Its French root is the participle réfugé (meaning “taken refuge”), which, in turn, traces its origins to the Latin prefix re (meaning “back”) and the verb fugere (meaning “to flee”).

The Huguenots, a Protestant religious group, escaped from France to England to avoid persecution after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. They were the first group to be called refugees.

Rival

“Rival” traces its roots to the Latin noun rivus, meaning “stream.” The ancient Romans called people who used the same stream rivales. Roman legal records list many court cases between rivales who found it impossible to settle differences concerning ownership of streams they shared. As a result, rivales quickly came to mean people who competed against each other for the same rights or objects. English adopted the term and its meaning, adapting only the spelling.

Sheik

A sheik is the chief of an Arab family, tribe, or village. The word is an adaptation of the Arabic word shaikh, which means “an old man” or “a wise man,” which is in turn comes from shakha, meaning “to grow old.” Since a person usually needs time to become wise, chieftains or sheiks usually were the elders in a community.

Sudan

An Arabic translation of the Greek Ethiopia, Sudan is a shortened form of Bilad as-Sudan, which means “land of the blacks.”

Viking

Not everyone agrees on the origin of “Viking.” Some believe the name is derived from the Old Norse word vik, meaning a “creek,” “inlet,” or “bay.” Others see the English term wic, a derivative of the Latin term vicus, meaning “a camp.” Temporary camps were a key feature of Viking raiding parties.

Villain

As ancient Rome grew in power and influence, wealthier Romans began to build country houses outside the city. In Latin, such an estate was called a villa. Caretakers, groundskeepers, and domestic help were needed to maintain the house and property, so the Roman landowner built other small dwellings around his large one. Eventually, this entire community was referred to as a villa. In time, any small community became known as a villa and the inhabitants known as villani. The early French adopted the term, changing the spelling to villein. During the Middle Ages, a villein was a free peasant or a common villager who owed allegiance to the lord who owned or was in charge of the area. Since peasant workers were uneducated and lived in rough dwellings, landowners and others considered them to be crude and without morals. Villein gradually came to be associated with a person fitting that description and is used now to refer to a deliberate scoundrel capable of committing great crimes. English borrowed the French form as the basis for its words “villain.”

Vulgar

The Romans used vulgus in a contemptuous manner when referring to the lower-class, common Romans. Through the centuries, the meaning of “vulgar” has changed. Today, its first definition (“associated with the masses of people”) has a negative connotation and more often it is used in the sense of lacking in taste. Also derived from vulgus are the English words vulgarity (“an act or expression that offends good taste”) and vulgate (“the common speech of people, vernacular”). See also people and plebe.