False friends and other unfortunate coincidences

[Zé do Rock]

REFORMEE

Lés arjentinis ee lés autres sudamericanis ki viennent au Brasil avec une voitur ont toujours baucoup a rir: cuando ven el reclamo 'borracharia'. Im portugueis isso ker dizer uma oficina specializada im pneus, im espaniol soa como uma loja ond você ench a cara. Klar, das macht man normalerweise in einer bar, aber nich jeder, der eine bar besucht, wird unbedingt besoffen.

Lés sudamericanis ont dee problemes cand ils sont invitee par example a un dinnee au Brasil: al final, si la comida estaba buena o ellos son educados, dicen "exquisito"! Nas duas línguas a palavra significa algo meio extraordinario, mas o problema é ki no espaniol a palavra tem um sentido altament positivo (como im outras línguas), no portugueis um sentido negativo...


ENGLISH HOUSE STILE

Arjentinians and other soudamericanis who come to Brazil with the car hav always a reeson to laf, wen they see the sine 'borracharia'. In portugase this meens a weel service, ware they change or sell tires, in espanish it meens a "drunkery", a shop ware you get drunk. Sure, usualy you do that in a bar, but not evrybody who enters a bar leevs it drunk.

Soudamericanis hav problems wen they ar invited for instance for a dinner in Brazil: at the end, if the meel was good or they ar polite, they say "exquisito"! In both languages the word meens something special, extrordinary, but the problem is that in espanish (as in other languages) it meens something positiv, wile in portuguese it meens 'strange' or 'funny' - in a neggativ sense.

[Shemtov]

:zho: 猪 zhū /t͡ʂú/"pig" ;eng: "Jew"
The following Orthographic pair actually got the Beatles called "Anti-Semitic" when they advertised the "Hey Jude" single in a minimalist manner, while a wave of Neo-Nazism was sweeping England:
Jude "Masculine Name" Jude "Jew"

[sangi39]

:zho: 猪 zhū /t͡ʂú/"pig" ;eng: "Jew"
The following Orthographic pair actually got the Beatles called "Anti-Semitic" when they advertised the "Hey Jude" single in a minimalist manner, while a wave of Neo-Nazism was sweeping England:
Jude "Masculine Name" Jude "Jew"

I learnt the German word "Jude" before I knew "Jude" was an English name. It did cause some confusion

[Shemtov]

:zho: 猪 zhū /t͡ʂú/"pig" ;eng: "Jew"
The following Orthographic pair actually got the Beatles called "Anti-Semitic" when they advertised the "Hey Jude" single in a minimalist manner, while a wave of Neo-Nazism was sweeping England:
Jude "Masculine Name" Jude "Jew"

I learnt the German word "Jude" before I knew "Jude" was an English name. It did cause some confusion

They are actually cognates, coming from Hebrew /jəhudɔ/ "Judah". All Israelites came to be known as "Judeans" and in German it evolved into <Jude>. "Jude" is an accident: Texts translated from Greek (and thus NT texts) rendered /jəhudɔ/ <Judas>. As a book of the NT is named after a /jəhudɔ/, and the associations with Judas Iscariot, Christians felt uncomfortable with a "Book of Judas" in their canon, so the Anglicans changed it to "Jude"

[Zé do Rock]

REF

Als ich in Brasil beim dren war, ging ich mit dem tonmann in ein schreibwarengeschäft, er wollte brifmarken kaufen. Il parlai espaniano parse ke sa fam était colomba, ee a demandee a la vendeus si el avai dee "sellos", dee timbre. Pero en portugaliano /sejos/ se escribe "seios" y ellos son los senos... A menina ficou un pocu perplexa...

HS

Wen i was in Brazil with a film teem, i went with the soundman into a stationery, he wanted to by stamps. He spoke espaniano becaus his wife was colomba, and he askd the feemale atendant if they had "sellos" thare, stamps. But in portugaliano /sejos/ is speld "seios" and meens the brests... The girl was a bit astonnishd...

[k1234567890y]

from my conlangs:

Lonmai Luna -los "-y" v.s. Standard German -los "-less"

Mayato MKII gang "police v.s. English gang

[sangi39]

from my conlangs:

Lonmai Luna -los "-y" v.s. Standard German -los "-less"

Mayato MKII gang "police v.s. English gang

I think someone mentioned this in either this thread, or a related one (false cognates maybe?), but I don't think many people would count conlangs.

[k1234567890y]

from my conlangs:

Lonmai Luna -los "-y" v.s. Standard German -los "-less"

Mayato MKII gang "police v.s. English gang

I think someone mentioned this in either this thread, or a related one (false cognates maybe?), but I don't think many people would count conlangs.

ok

I posted conlangs as I have seen someone doing this before

[Dormouse559]

GPA - grade point average
GPA - surrogacy (gestation pour autrui)

[GrandPiano]

from my conlangs:

Lonmai Luna -los "-y" v.s. Standard German -los "-less"

Mayato MKII gang "police v.s. English gang

I think someone mentioned this in either this thread, or a related one (false cognates maybe?), but I don't think many people would count conlangs.

I can see why conlangs wouldn't be wanted in the false cognates thread, since a similarity between a conlang and a natlang can't be guaranteed to be coincidental, but I don't see what's wrong with conlangs here.

[zyma]

from my conlangs:

Lonmai Luna -los "-y" v.s. Standard German -los "-less"

Mayato MKII gang "police v.s. English gang

I think someone mentioned this in either this thread, or a related one (false cognates maybe?), but I don't think many people would count conlangs.

I can see why conlangs wouldn't be wanted in the false cognates thread, since a similarity between a conlang and a natlang can't be guaranteed to be coincidental, but I don't see what's wrong with conlangs here.

We can't guarantee that any "false friends" between conlangs and natlangs are actually coincidental, either, right?

[Shemtov]

from my conlangs:

Lonmai Luna -los "-y" v.s. Standard German -los "-less"

Mayato MKII gang "police v.s. English gang

I think someone mentioned this in either this thread, or a related one (false cognates maybe?), but I don't think many people would count conlangs.

I can see why conlangs wouldn't be wanted in the false cognates thread, since a similarity between a conlang and a natlang can't be guaranteed to be coincidental, but I don't see what's wrong with conlangs here.

We can't guarantee that any "false friends" between conlangs and natlangs are actually coincidental, either, right?

I don't have a problem with it, if it's a diachronic project, and from a daughter lang

[zyma]

from my conlangs:

Lonmai Luna -los "-y" v.s. Standard German -los "-less"

Mayato MKII gang "police v.s. English gang

I think someone mentioned this in either this thread, or a related one (false cognates maybe?), but I don't think many people would count conlangs.

I can see why conlangs wouldn't be wanted in the false cognates thread, since a similarity between a conlang and a natlang can't be guaranteed to be coincidental, but I don't see what's wrong with conlangs here.

We can't guarantee that any "false friends" between conlangs and natlangs are actually coincidental, either, right?

I don't have a problem with it, if it's a diachronic project, and from a daughter lang

Yeah, I agree that that's probably fair.

[GrandPiano]

from my conlangs:

Lonmai Luna -los "-y" v.s. Standard German -los "-less"

Mayato MKII gang "police v.s. English gang

I think someone mentioned this in either this thread, or a related one (false cognates maybe?), but I don't think many people would count conlangs.

I can see why conlangs wouldn't be wanted in the false cognates thread, since a similarity between a conlang and a natlang can't be guaranteed to be coincidental, but I don't see what's wrong with conlangs here.

We can't guarantee that any "false friends" between conlangs and natlangs are actually coincidental, either, right?

False friends don’t rely on coincidence though. Two words could be etymologically related but still be false friends if they look similar but mean different things.

[zyma]

from my conlangs:

Lonmai Luna -los "-y" v.s. Standard German -los "-less"

Mayato MKII gang "police v.s. English gang

I think someone mentioned this in either this thread, or a related one (false cognates maybe?), but I don't think many people would count conlangs.

I can see why conlangs wouldn't be wanted in the false cognates thread, since a similarity between a conlang and a natlang can't be guaranteed to be coincidental, but I don't see what's wrong with conlangs here.

We can't guarantee that any "false friends" between conlangs and natlangs are actually coincidental, either, right?

False friends don’t rely on coincidence though. Two words could be etymologically related but still be false friends if they look similar but mean different things.

I meant coincidental as in creating a word in a conlang and then later discovering that it happens to sound like a word in a natlang with a different meaning, as opposed to purposefully designing a word in a conlang to be a false friend to a natlang word.

[GrandPiano]

from my conlangs:

Lonmai Luna -los "-y" v.s. Standard German -los "-less"

Mayato MKII gang "police v.s. English gang

I think someone mentioned this in either this thread, or a related one (false cognates maybe?), but I don't think many people would count conlangs.

I can see why conlangs wouldn't be wanted in the false cognates thread, since a similarity between a conlang and a natlang can't be guaranteed to be coincidental, but I don't see what's wrong with conlangs here.

We can't guarantee that any "false friends" between conlangs and natlangs are actually coincidental, either, right?

False friends don’t rely on coincidence though. Two words could be etymologically related but still be false friends if they look similar but mean different things.

I meant coincidental as in creating a word in a conlang and then later discovering that it happens to sound like a word in a natlang with a different meaning, as opposed to purposefully designing a word in a conlang to be a false friend to a natlang word.

I suppose that could happen as well, but I think the issue isn't necessarily people lying about a similarity being unintentional so much as that a conlanger's knowledge of natlangs can influence the words they create, even if they don't realize it.

[Pabappa]

The old ZBB had a thread for "conlang words that happen to resemble real words" and I posted dozens of examples. But it was for words that resembles natlang words regardless of meaning, so that e.g. luna "house" would still be a match.

[Zé do Rock]

EUR

In bahasa indonesia, 'bunda' signifi 'mam'. In Brazil lu signifi la 'bumbum'. In el unale vez ki mi vidou a "klinika bunda" in Indonesia, mi pensou af a clinica specializat in bumes...


RITE

In bahasa indonesia, 'bunda' meens 'muther'. In Brazil it meens the but. The first time i saw a "klinika bunda" in Indonesia, i thaut of a clinic specialized in asses.

[k1234567890y]

sorry for causing controversies again...><

English shark and Yucatan Mayan xoc "fish", and there's a theory that the English word is from the Mayan word.

[GrandPiano]

English shark and Yucatan Mayan xoc "fish", and there's a theory that the English word is from the Mayan word.

Wiktionary says that the word "shark" was used to refer to a kind of fish before sharks were first brought to England, so the word can't be from Mayan.