*les-, *leg-

Already in Ancient Greek and Latin it was used in the context of “selecting words” and “gathering meaning” and became the origin of plenty of words that revolve around language and ideas. Like logic, lexicon, legal, dialect, ideologue, apology, select and many more.

The German lesen today means to read, but the original sense of gathering, picking is also still alive in words like auflesen or Weinlese.