dyslexia

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*leg-“to collect, gather; to speak”
2. Ancient Greek · derived fromλέγω“to speak”
3. Ancient Greek · derived fromδυσ-
4. German · derived fromDyslexie
5. French · learned borrowing fromdyslexie
6. English todaydyslexia

Learned borrowing from French dyslexie and/or German Dyslexie, coined by German ophthalmologist Rudolf Berlin in 1887, from dys- + lexis + -ia, from Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus-) + λέξις (léxis, “diction”, “word”), from Ancient Greek λέγω (légō, “to speak”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leg- (“to collect, gather; to speak”). The term was coined with λέξις (léxis) being taken to mean "reading," likely due to semantic conflation of Greek λέγω (légō, “to speak”) and Latin legō (“to read”). By surface analysis, dys- + lex(is) + -ia.

Words from the same roots