Over 60 per cent of all English words are of Greek or Latin origin. In the vocabulary of sciences and technology, the figure of words originating from Greek or Latin rises to over 90 per cent. This means many English words have root words, prefixes, infixes or suffixes with Latin or Greek origin, while others are borrowed from Latin or Greek and are directly used in English. It is one of the facts that make the English language a very rich one, as well as giving learners a bigger chance to come to the meaning of certain words easily. One of the Latin words used in English is ‘vert/ vers’. You have seen a car ‘reversing’ or you ‘convert’ miles into kilometres. The Latin root vert/ vers is used in English to mean ‘turn’. As we have seen above, words where vert/ vers (reverse, convert) appear carry the sense of ‘turning’. Consider words such as divert, conversation, invert, obvert, vertical, version and many more. When parties converge (come together/ turn to each other) to exchange ideas, we say they are conversing. Remember the prefix con- means ‘happening among more than one party’ while ‘vers’ means ‘turn’. Although the word ‘vertical’ means upright, the sense of turn is in the fact that when the top point of something standing vertical is left to fall, it turns to the very point where it begins. When a new version of a book is released, it means the old book has turned new through the correct version. Do not be surprised when you learn that the French word for ‘birthday’ is the same as any other anniversary. Two Latin words ‘annus’ (year) and ‘versus’ (turn) are used to tell that it has turned a year since something happened. However, not all words that have ‘vert’ have the sense of ‘turn’. For instance, the word overtake, overthrow, and etcetera. When you break down these words, you find that the ‘vert’ is lost (over-take, over-throw). The writer is a professional English Language instructor
