Language & Literature · Unit 17
Where Words Come From
Etymology, language families and how English changed
English is a Germanic language that absorbed enormous amounts of French and Latin, which is why it so often has two or three words for the same thing at different registers.
The unit covers etymology, the story of English, borrowed words, language families, and dialects and language change.
This unit breaks down into 21 short steps and 124 questions, starting at difficulty 3 and building to 5. Below you can see exactly what it covers, how the path is structured, and worked examples with explanations.
- Steps
- 21
- Questions
- 124
- Difficulty
- 3-5
What this unit covers
- Etymology
- The Story of English
- Borrowed Words
- Language Families
- Dialects and Language Change
Where this fits
Follows Building Vocabulary.
Where people slip
Language change is not decay. Every rule now considered correct was once an innovation someone complained about, and the complaints are as old as the records.
How the unit is structured
Where Words Come From runs as 21 short steps that unlock in order. 15 are practice rounds and 6 are challenge rounds that pull together everything before them. Questions start at difficulty 3 and climb to 5 as you progress.
Challenge rounds
Example questions
30 real questions from this unit, with the answer and the reason behind it, grouped by what they practise. There are 124 in the unit altogether.
Borrowed Words
- Fill the blankLevel 3
1. A word taken directly from another language, such as "croissant", is called a ____ word.
- loancorrect
- compound
- root
- blended
Such borrowings are called loan words, even though they are never given back.
- Match the pairsLevel 3
2. Match each borrowed English word to the language it came from.
Answer: safari = Swahili; ballet = French; piano = Italian; kayak = Inuit
English has taken useful words from cultures all over the world.
- Build the sentenceLevel 4
3. Build a true sentence about how English grew its vocabulary.
Answer: English has borrowed thousands of words from other languages
Borrowing is the main reason English has one of the largest vocabularies of any language.
- Fact or fibLevel 4
4. The word "chocolate" reached English from the Nahuatl language of Mexico by way of Spanish.
Answer: True
Spanish speakers carried the Nahuatl word across the Atlantic and English borrowed it from them.
- Multiple choiceLevel 4
5. From which language did English borrow the word "kindergarten"?
- Germancorrect
- Dutch
- Swedish
- Yiddish
German kindergarten literally means children's garden.
- Choose all that applyLevel 5
6. Which of these English words come from Latin? Pick all that apply.
- videocorrect
- agendacorrect
- kayak
- bungalow
Video and agenda are Latin verb forms, while kayak is Inuit and bungalow comes from South Asia.
Dialects and Language Change
- Choose all that applyLevel 3
7. Which of these are real ways that living languages change over time? Pick all that apply.
- New words are coined for new inventionscorrect
- Word meanings shift, as when "awful" moved from awe-inspiring to terrible
- Pronunciation drifts from one generation to the nextcorrect
- A dictionary freezes a language so it can no longer change
Living languages constantly gain new words, shift meanings and change pronunciation.
- Multiple choiceLevel 3
8. In British English the mark at the end of a sentence is called a full stop. What is it called in American English?
- Periodcorrect
- Colon
- Dot point
- Stop mark
British English says full stop; American English says period for the same mark.
- Picture questionLevel 3
9. 📖 Which reference book records the spelling, meaning and origin of words?
- A dictionarycorrect
- An atlas
- A novel
- An almanac
A dictionary records what words mean, how they are spelled and where they came from.
- Build the sentenceLevel 4
10. Build a sentence naming the variety of English normally used in formal writing.
Answer: Standard English is the variety used in formal writing
Standard English is the widely taught written variety, though every dialect is a valid form of speech.
- Fact or fibLevel 4
11. Received Pronunciation is a prestige accent of British English, not a separate language.
Answer: True
RP is simply one accent of English, often heard in older broadcasting.
- Fill the blankLevel 5
12. "Knight" once meant only a servant boy but came to mean a noble warrior; this rise in status is called ____.
- ameliorationcorrect
- pejoration
- clipping
- blending
Amelioration is the opposite of pejoration: the sense of a word becomes more favourable.
Etymology
- Fill the blankLevel 3
13. The core part of a word that carries its basic meaning, such as "port" in transport, is called the ____.
- rootcorrect
- synonym
- homophone
- syllable
A root is the base element of a word that other parts are added to.
- Multiple choiceLevel 3
14. The word "etymology" comes from the Greek word "etymon". What does "etymon" mean?
- The true or original sense of a wordcorrect
- A letter of the alphabet
- A change in pronunciation
- A collection of definitions
Etymon means the true or original sense of a word, so etymology is literally the study of a word's true origin.
- Picture questionLevel 3
15. 🐭 The Latin word musculus, meaning "little mouse", gave English which body-part word?
- musclecorrect
- marrow
- tendon
- kneecap
Romans thought a flexing bicep looked like a small mouse moving under the skin, so musculus became muscle.
- Fact or fibLevel 4
16. The word "goodbye" developed from the older phrase "God be with ye".
Answer: True
True: centuries of shortening turned the blessing into a single everyday word.
- Match the pairsLevel 4
17. Match each English word to the literal meaning of the phrase it grew from.
Answer: companion = one who shares bread; candidate = clothed in white; disaster = bad star; quarantine = forty days
Many everyday words hide a vivid picture in their original Latin or Italian phrasing.
- Odd one outLevel 5
18. Three of these English words are built from Greek elements. Which one is built from Latin instead?
- aquariumcorrect
- telephone
- biology
- democracy
Aquarium comes from Latin aqua, while telephone, biology and democracy are all Greek in origin.
Language Families
- Odd one outLevel 3
19. Which of these languages is NOT a Germanic language?
- Frenchcorrect
- German
- Dutch
- Swedish
French is a Romance language descended from Latin, while the others are Germanic.
- Choose all that applyLevel 4
20. Which of these are Romance languages descended from Latin? Pick all that apply.
- Romaniancorrect
- Portuguesecorrect
- Catalancorrect
- Dutch
Romanian, Portuguese and Catalan all grew out of spoken Latin, while Dutch is Germanic.
- Fill the blankLevel 4
21. Arabic, Hebrew and Amharic all belong to the ____ group of languages.
- Semiticcorrect
- Slavic
- Baltic
- Turkic
These three are Semitic languages, a branch of the wider Afroasiatic family.
- Match the pairsLevel 4
22. Match each language to the family it belongs to.
Answer: Finnish = Uralic; Arabic = Afro-Asiatic; Mandarin = Sino-Tibetan; Swahili = Niger-Congo
Geography and family membership are different things, so each language must be matched by descent.
- Fact or fibLevel 5
23. Basque has no proven relationship to any other living language.
Answer: True
True: Basque is the best known language isolate in Europe.
- Multiple choiceLevel 5
24. Hebrew and Arabic are usually classified in which language family?
- Afro-Asiaticcorrect
- Indo-European
- Uralic
- Niger-Congo
Both are Semitic languages, and Semitic is a branch of the wider Afro-Asiatic family.
The Story of English
- Build the sentenceLevel 3
25. Build a true sentence about the printing press and English.
Answer: Printing helped make English spelling more standard
William Caxton set up England's first printing press in 1476, which helped standardise English spelling.
- Choose all that applyLevel 3
26. Which statements about Old English are correct? Pick all that apply.
- It used many word endings to show grammatical casecorrect
- Its nouns had grammatical gendercorrect
- It is easy for modern readers to understand without study
- It was mostly built from Norman French vocabulary
Old English was a heavily inflected Germanic language with grammatical gender, quite unlike English today.
- Guess the numberLevel 3
27. In which year did the Norman Conquest of England take place?
Answer: 1066 AD
The Normans invaded in 1066, an event that reshaped the English language.
- Multiple choiceLevel 3
28. The poem "Beowulf" was written in which stage of the English language?
- Old Englishcorrect
- Middle English
- Early Modern English
- Modern English
"Beowulf" survives in Old English, which looks very different from the English we read today.
- Fill the blankLevel 4
29. In 1476 William Caxton set up England's first ____, which slowly helped fix English spelling.
- printing presscorrect
- university
- public library
- newspaper office
Caxton's printing press meant identical copies of texts spread the same spellings widely.
- Put in orderLevel 4
30. Put these events in the history of English in chronological order, earliest first.
Answer: Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain -> Viking raids bring Norse words -> The Norman Conquest -> The King James Bible is printed -> Johnson's Dictionary is published
The Anglo-Saxons arrived in the 5th century, Viking raids followed, the Normans came in 1066, the King James Bible appeared in 1611 and Johnson's Dictionary in 1755.
Where these questions come from. Each unit starts as a plan of the concepts it should cover and the difficulty it should span. Questions are written against that plan with AI assistance, then checked by a validator that rejects anything without a single defensible answer, an explanation, or plausible wrong options. How we write questions sets out the whole process, and corrections are fixed in the bank and reach the site and the app the same day.
How you practise
This unit mixes 14 different question formats, so you are recalling and applying rather than recognising the same layout every time.
- Build the sentence
- Choose all that apply
- Fact or fib
- Fill the blank
- Guess the number
- Match the pairs
- Multiple choice
- Odd one out
- Picture question
- Put in order
- Sort into groups
- Spell it
- True or false
- Type the answer
Practise Where Words Come From
124 questions across 21 steps. Start with step one and crawl at your own pace.
Play this unitRead about Where Words Come From
Explainers from our blog on what this unit covers. Each one ends with real questions from the bank.
- What Is Etymology? Where Words Come From and How to Trace ThemEtymology is the history of words: where they came from and how their meanings changed. How it is done, what it shows, and the trap of folk etymology.September 14, 2026 · 5 min read
- Where Does the English Language Come From?Where does the English language come from? Its Germanic roots, the Norse and Norman layers, and why English vocabulary is such a mixture.August 28, 2026 · 6 min read
- How to Learn a New Language, a Little Each DayYou do not need long lessons to learn a language. Small daily practice, common words first, and a friendly attitude toward mistakes will take you far.November 25, 2025 · 5 min read
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- Parts of SpeechNouns, verbs, adjectives and the rest of the toolkit
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