What is the meaning of tike in grammatike?

[Pedroski]

I often look up words in etymonline.com and quite often words go back to Greek roots. Recently, I looked up grammar, here is part of the entry for grammar:

 

The classical Latin word is from Greek grammatike (tekhnē) "(art) of letters," referring both to philology and to literature in the broadest sense, fem. of grammatikos (adj.) "pertaining to or versed in letters or learning," from gramma "letter"

I'm tempted to think tike or (tekhnē) is technique and thus grammatike would be letter technique. Is that a false assumption?

How would you experts translate the tike or (tekhnē) part?

[spiros]

-ικός, -ική, -ικό is a typical adjectival suffix. Thus, there is no meaning as such. In Greek often the fem. adj.+noun combination for arts is clipped so you only get the fem. adj. to denote the concept of that specific art. Similarly, κεραμικός → κεραμική (τέχνη).

γραμματικός - Ancient Greek (LSJ)
κεραμικός - Ancient Greek (LSJ)

[Pedroski]

Thanks very much!

Is the t is just there to prevent γραμματικός becoming γραμμαικός?

I wonder if that -tike is the source of -tic as in pedantic, romantic, semantic?

grammatike would correspond to English lettered I presume, meaning erudite, well educated?

To quote etymonline again:

"irregular semi-popular adoption" [OED] of Latin grammatica "grammar, philology," perhaps via an unrecorded Medieval Latin form *grammaria.

How did the Romans make a noun of this adjective?

[spiros]

Is the t is just there to prevent γραμματικός becoming γραμμαικός?

The root word for grammar is not γράμμα but γραμματικός.

I wonder if that -tike is the source of -tic as in pedantic, romantic, semantic?

Yes.

How did the Romans make a noun of this adjective?

The same way the Greeks did as it is a Greek loanword: fem. adj.+noun → fem. adj. only → noun

Adjectives turning into nouns is quite common in the neuter as well:

In addition, Greek, unlike English but like many other languages, can routinely use adjectives on their own without a noun. In fact, neuter adjectives were how Classical philosophers referred to abstractions: τὸ ἴσον, “the equal”, was how someone like Plato would refer to Equality.
Did an adjective in Ancient Greek precede or follow the noun? - Quora

[Pedroski]

Thanks again, very helpful!