Antique, idol, dialogue, geography, grammar, architect, economy, encyclopedia, telephone, microscope… all these common English words have something in common: they originate from Greek. To this list, we could add thousands more words, some common and others less so. Clearly, the Greek language has had an important influence on the English language.

According to one survey, more than 150,000 words of English are of Greek origin. These include technical and scientific terms but also more common words like those above.

Words that starts with ‘ph-’ are usually of Greek origin, for example: philosophy, physical, photo, phrase, philanthropy.

Many English words are formed of parts of words that originate from the Greek language, including the following examples:

Greek mythology (神话) has been very influential in Western culture, particularly its art and literature. Unsurprisingly, some common expressions in English come from these ancient myths and beliefs.

“To have an ‘Achilles’ heel” means “to have a weakness”. Achilles was a Greek hero and central character in Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad. He was only weak at his heel. Example sentence: I’m trying to eat more healthily, but chocolate is my Achilles’ heel.

The ‘Midas touch’ is another common expression from Greek mythology. Describing a near-magical ability to succeed at anything one attempts, the expression originates from a story of King Midas, who is remembered for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold. Example sentence: My brother’s business is so successful, he really has the Midas touch!

An idiom which has its roots in ancient Greece is ‘crocodile tears’. The phrase might come from the popular ancient belief that crocodiles weep while eating their victims. In fact, crocodiles do lubricate (润滑) their eyes by means of their tear ducts (泪管), usually when their eyes start to dry out after being out of the water for a long time. However, the behaviour is also thought to happen when crocodiles feed. It’s used in English to describe expressions of sadness that are insincere.

The best-known example of external(外部的) influence causing language change is the "Americanization" of world culture, which has caused English words to appear in city streets all over the world. The effect is most noticeable in pop music. Foreign groups often record in English, and the words are picked up and repeated in the same language everywhere, even by children who otherwise have little or no command of the language. I once met a Brazilian child of about ten who could count ‘one, two, three’, but only by adding the words ‘o’ clock, four o'clock rock’ at the end.

Some people are often strongly critical of the influence of English on their language —especially when an English word replaces a traditional word. In 1977, France passed a law banning the use of English words in official situations if an equivalent(意义相同的) French expression existed — but the law seemed to be honored more in the breaking than in the observing. Some other countries have considered introducing a similar law despite the evidence that such laws have very little effect, and that the arrival of loan words(外来词) can greatly enrich a language (as indeed in the case of English itself, which has a long history of welcoming foreign words).

However, not everyone is critical. In particular, commercial firms and advertisers are well aware of the potential selling power that the use of English vocabulary can bring. In Japan, English is even used in television commercials, despite the fact that the majority of viewers would not understand exactly what was being said: the excellence implied by the mere use of English is apparently enough to command the strategy to the advertisers.

Most of the influence of English is upon the vocabulary of foreign languages, but surveys are slowly bringing to light several cases where word order or word structure has been affected. Sentences of the type “The book sells well”, using an active construction for a passive meaning, have begun to appear in Danish (Bogen soelger godt). Several languages keep the English plural ending when they make use of a loan word, and do not translate it into the native form, e.g. drinks. There are many other such cases.

English is fast becoming the language of science around the world, but what is its future among everyday speakers? One expert points out that the percentage（比率）of native English speakers is declining（降低）globally while the languages of other rapidly growing regions are being spoken by increasing numbers of people. But English will continue to remain widespread and important.

However, British language scholar David Graddol says English will probably drop in dominance（主导）by the middle of this century to rank, after Chinese, about equally with Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu. “The number of people speaking English as a first language continues to rise, but it isn’t rising nearly as fast as the numbers of many other languages around the world, simply because the main population group has been largely in the less developed countries where languages other than English have been spoken,” he says.

In a recent article in the journal Science, Mr. Graddol noted that three languages that are not near the top of the list of the most widely spoken now might be there soon. These are Bengali, Tamil, and Malay, spoken in south and Southeast Asia.

David Crystal, the author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, says about 1.5 billion of the world’s six billion people speak it as a second tongue compared to the 400 million native speakers. But another expert on the English language says Mr. Graddol underestimates（低估）the future of its dominance.

“Nobody quite knows what’s going to happen because no language has been in this position before. But all the evidence（证据）suggests that the English language snowball is rolling down a hill and is getting faster,” he said.