This book is about the sources of English words, about their etymology andhistory, about their sound-structure, and about some formal properties of Englishword-formation rules. It is important to realize, however, that it is not about allpossible origins, it is not about all the ways in which English has introduced newwords into the language, but rather it is primarily about a particular subset, thatportion of the vocabulary which is borrowed from the classical languages (Latinand Greek) either directly, or indirectly through French.