False cognates

A forum for discussing linguistics or just languages in general.
User avatar
WeepingElf
greek
greek
Posts: 531
Joined: 23 Feb 2016 18:42
Location: Braunschweig, Germany
Contact:

Re: False cognates

Post by WeepingElf »

KaiTheHomoSapien wrote: 23 Sep 2018 20:32 :eng: Earth (and :deu: Erde) - :ara: أَرْض 'ard "earth"

I'm sure this one has been brought up many times before, but I just read it in a book about Arab history and that's just weird. I mean, how can they not be related? One has to wonder...
There are speculations that this could be a Neolithic Wanderwort (originally meaning 'crop field' or 'soil'), being borrowed into both IE and Semitic from the unknown language of the first farmers in the Near East, together with some others such as the word for 'bull'.
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
My conlang pages
User avatar
All4Ɇn
mayan
mayan
Posts: 1765
Joined: 01 Mar 2014 07:19

Re: False cognates

Post by All4Ɇn »

:jpn: 哀歌 aika "elegy" or "Lamentations"
:isr: אֵיכָה 'eikhá "Lamentations"
User avatar
Shemtov
runic
runic
Posts: 3283
Joined: 29 Apr 2013 04:06

Re: False cognates

Post by Shemtov »

This is loose, as at is really the same idiom being used across time, space, and linguistic families, but they sound nothing alike, but I'd thought I'd share it:
:eng: Streetwalker Mishnaic :isr: /josˤejɛθ haħuwsˤ/ "id.; Lit. 'she who goes outside'"
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien
User avatar
Shemtov
runic
runic
Posts: 3283
Joined: 29 Apr 2013 04:06

Re: False cognates

Post by Shemtov »

:hkg: /kei˨/ "Prostitute" :eng: Geisha "Japanese Prostitute". The latter is misapplication of a word for "Traditional Japanese Female Dancer"
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien
Salmoneus
MVP
MVP
Posts: 3030
Joined: 19 Sep 2011 19:37

Re: False cognates

Post by Salmoneus »

Salmoneus wrote: 04 Sep 2018 01:14 coop vs cubby vs cubicle
And come to think of it: cube vs cubicle. -icle is such a common diminutive, and the two are so close in meaning, that it seems almost impossible that they're not related. But "cubicle" is actually an instrumental derivative of a verb for lying down - hence, "lying down place" - whereas 'cube' is from Greek, possibly in turn from a Lydian word for dice.
User avatar
Shemtov
runic
runic
Posts: 3283
Joined: 29 Apr 2013 04:06

Re: False cognates

Post by Shemtov »

WeepingElf wrote: 24 Sep 2018 20:00
KaiTheHomoSapien wrote: 23 Sep 2018 20:32 :eng: Earth (and :deu: Erde) - :ara: أَرْض 'ard "earth"

I'm sure this one has been brought up many times before, but I just read it in a book about Arab history and that's just weird. I mean, how can they not be related? One has to wonder...
There are speculations that this could be a Neolithic Wanderwort (originally meaning 'crop field' or 'soil'), being borrowed into both IE and Semitic from the unknown language of the first farmers in the Near East, together with some others such as the word for 'bull'.
The PIE source is *h₁er-, without the final coronal, it shows up in North Germanic as Icelandic <aur> /øyːr/ "Mud", East Germanic in Gothic < aurahjons > "Tombs", in Albanian with a /v/ attached to the beginning as <varr> "grave", and in Celtic, possibly in Welsh <Erw> "Field". The PIE word IMHO probably meant "used or dug/plowed ground" and the meaning was narrowed in West Germanic. As for the word for Bull, it shows up only in two families, which IMHO indicates borrowing, a more prototypical Wanderwort for me is the source of :eng: "Mare" showing up in the Altaic Sprachbund as Mongolian морь, Manchu Morin,Sino-Tibetan as Old :zho: (Zhangzhang) /*mraːʔ/and in Koreanic as :kor: 말 /mal/.
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien
GrandPiano
mayan
mayan
Posts: 2080
Joined: 11 Jan 2015 23:22
Location: USA

Re: False cognates

Post by GrandPiano »

:jpn: Classical Japanese ます -masu (honorific verb suffix)
:jpn: Modern Japanese ます -masu (polite verb suffix)

You would think that the latter would come from the former, but apparently they’re unrelated.
User avatar
All4Ɇn
mayan
mayan
Posts: 1765
Joined: 01 Mar 2014 07:19

Re: False cognates

Post by All4Ɇn »

GrandPiano wrote: 12 Oct 2018 00:19 :jpn: Classical Japanese ます -masu (honorific verb suffix)
:jpn: Modern Japanese ます -masu (polite verb suffix)

You would think that the latter would come from the former, but apparently they’re unrelated.
Woah really? Where did you read about that?
GrandPiano
mayan
mayan
Posts: 2080
Joined: 11 Jan 2015 23:22
Location: USA

Re: False cognates

Post by GrandPiano »

All4Ɇn wrote: 12 Oct 2018 08:01
GrandPiano wrote: 12 Oct 2018 00:19 :jpn: Classical Japanese ます -masu (honorific verb suffix)
:jpn: Modern Japanese ます -masu (polite verb suffix)

You would think that the latter would come from the former, but apparently they’re unrelated.
Woah really? Where did you read about that?
Modern -masu apparently comes from a contraction of classical mawirasuru, the attributive form of the causative form of the humble verb mawiru (参る, modern mairu) “to go, to come, to give, to serve, to do”.

The old honorific -masu comes from the old honorific verb masu “to be, to go, to come” used as an auxiliary verb.

Source: https://kobun.weblio.jp/content/ます
Wiktionary also has a description of the etymology of modern -masu.

You can also tell that they’re etymologically different because they belong to different conjugational classes. The old classical masu was a consonant-stem or yodan verb (equivalent to a modern godan verb); modern -masu conjugates irregularly, but it originally had a classical nidan conjugation, giving the modern negative form -masen. If it came from a yodan verb, you would expect the negative form to be -masan.
Salmoneus
MVP
MVP
Posts: 3030
Joined: 19 Sep 2011 19:37

Re: False cognates

Post by Salmoneus »

Another naive one from me, I'm afraid: I always used to assume that English quoth had something to do with quote. Given that, you know, they differ in only one letter, and they both refer to spoken words, and 'quoth' is only ever used when quoting, and only differs in connotation from 'to quote'.

But they're completely unrelated. 'quoth' is obviously the past tense of the obscure word 'to quethe', and has always referred to speaking; whereas 'quote' comes from Latin 'quot', 'how many'. [which gives Latin 'quotus', 'which (number in sequence)', which gives mediaeval latin 'quotare', 'to distinguish by use of numbers', which gives middle english 'quoten', 'to ascribe chapter numbers to', which... presumably gave 'quotation' originally in the sense of 'a single chapter referred to by number', hence 'citation', hence 'extract to demonstrate a citation', which presumably allowed the meaning of the verb 'quote' to change in turn to 'include extracted text from', which then in turn yields 'repeat the speech of'. Which only in the 19th century zero-derives (or abbreviates the verbal noun) to produce nominal 'a quote'. So it's a long and frankly bizarre derivation that just happens to end up only one letter away from a near-synonymous word of unrelated origin...]
Salmoneus
MVP
MVP
Posts: 3030
Joined: 19 Sep 2011 19:37

Re: False cognates

Post by Salmoneus »

OK, this one surprised me, though I've encountered it before...


English tally, 'to count'
Proto-Germanic taljana, 'to count'. Likewise its derivative talo:, 'calculation, counting', Old Saxon tellian, and modern English tell and tale.

The former has ended up with the same meaning and pronunciation as the latter (allowing that the -ana is just the infinitive ending - so, for instance, English /tali:d/, PGmc /talide:/ for the 3rd person past singular). But they're completely unrelated. tally is instead from Latin 'talea', a stick.


What's more! 'Tally' can mean 'to check off', or 'to make sure two reports match', or just 'to match an earlier report'. Fair enough. And pilots, when being told that there is traffic nearby, reply "tally", to indicate that they have looked for and seen the traffic, finding that it matched the report and that this can be checked off. In the same way you might confirm a statement or indicate understanding by saying "check"*. Except: "tally" in this sense is, again, entirely unrelated. Pilots say "tally" because it's short for "tallyho!", the cry made when a hunter's prey (and by extension any object of interest) has been sighted, and is a deformation of the juxtaposted interjections "ta!" and "ho!"




*and this is an almost as remarkable LACK of a false cognate. Yes, all the varied and important uses of the word 'check' (and 'cheque', and 'exchequer' and so on) do derive simply from the habit of shouting "check!" when a chessplayer is at risk of losing the game, which in turn is just the Persian word for '(look at your) king!' (cognate of modern 'shah').
This is ridiculous. Although it does mean 'check' and (the aviation sense of) 'tally' are two of the rare words to have originally been ritual, rather than propositional, in origin. Even more so "checkmate", which people have been saying since the introduction of chess into Europe, but which at first had no meaning - it was simply what you traditionally shouted when winning a game of chess, and only later came to be used for the winning/losing board situation that provokes the cry. It's from a Persian expression meaning "the king is amazed!" (I'm guessing 'confounded' might be a better translation?), and was imported wholesale even though nobody would have known its significance when they were saying it...
User avatar
Lambuzhao
korean
korean
Posts: 5405
Joined: 13 May 2012 02:57

Re: False cognates

Post by Lambuzhao »

Salmoneus wrote: 20 Oct 2018 22:19 Another naive one from me, I'm afraid: I always used to assume that English quoth had something to do with quote. Given that, you know, they differ in only one letter, and they both refer to spoken words, and 'quoth' is only ever used when quoting, and only differs in connotation from 'to quote'.

But they're completely unrelated. 'quoth' is obviously the past tense of the obscure word 'to quethe', and has always referred to speaking;
'Bequeath' is also related to quethe/quoth [->] OE becweðan 'to say, speak to, exhort, blame', also 'leave by will'.

I'm of the opinion that Twitter could/should have been Cwiððer. [:3]
Conversely, the past/deverbal forms of the social media verb 'tweet' might have been 'twote'.

I'll stop now.
[:$]
User avatar
Xonen
moderator
moderator
Posts: 1080
Joined: 16 May 2010 00:25

Re: False cognates

Post by Xonen »

Salmoneus wrote: 20 Oct 2018 22:19 Another naive one from me, I'm afraid: I always used to assume that English quoth had something to do with quote. Given that, you know, they differ in only one letter, and they both refer to spoken words, and 'quoth' is only ever used when quoting, and only differs in connotation from 'to quote'.

But they're completely unrelated. 'quoth' is obviously the past tense of the obscure word 'to quethe', and has always referred to speaking; whereas 'quote' comes from Latin 'quot', 'how many'. [which gives Latin 'quotus', 'which (number in sequence)', which gives mediaeval latin 'quotare', 'to distinguish by use of numbers', which gives middle english 'quoten', 'to ascribe chapter numbers to', which... presumably gave 'quotation' originally in the sense of 'a single chapter referred to by number', hence 'citation', hence 'extract to demonstrate a citation', which presumably allowed the meaning of the verb 'quote' to change in turn to 'include extracted text from', which then in turn yields 'repeat the speech of'. Which only in the 19th century zero-derives (or abbreviates the verbal noun) to produce nominal 'a quote'. So it's a long and frankly bizarre derivation that just happens to end up only one letter away from a near-synonymous word of unrelated origin...]
In cases like this, I tend to be tempted to assume that the meaning of one word was influenced by the other (so in this case, the present meaning of "quote" would have been influenced by "quoth"), if only so that I can keep telling myself the world makes at least some sense... Although I'm not sure how likely that is here; the usage might be a bit too different, and "quoth" appears to have been slowly making its way to obsolescence since Early Modern English times.


Lambuzhao wrote: 21 Oct 2018 00:58Conversely, the past/deverbal forms of the social media verb 'tweet' might have been 'twote'.
What do you mean, "might"? [;)]
User avatar
Shemtov
runic
runic
Posts: 3283
Joined: 29 Apr 2013 04:06

Re: False cognates

Post by Shemtov »

Honestly, I've always encountered "Quoth" in the 3P.SING, so I figured it was an irregular verb without a past tense, *Quoe, and "Quote" was *Quoe with some obscure Old/Middle English deverbalizer, that when *Quoe fell out of normal speech, was reverbalized, and "Quotation" was a misapplication of the reverbalized form.
It's also a shame that <Quoth> is archaic, as the only Germanic Languages that it's still around in are Danish, Icelandic and Faroese (Though Wiktionary indicates it's in Scots as a noun "queth", though on the page for "queth" quoth it not.) I guess "Bequeath" is something....
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien
User avatar
Pabappa
greek
greek
Posts: 577
Joined: 18 Nov 2017 02:41

Re: False cognates

Post by Pabappa »

Interesting, I had no idea the chess sense was the original. Id heard the chess etymology before but disnt know it was the same word. And, is it possible that instead of "the king is amazed", it's actually "the king is dead"? /mawt/ means death but I'm not sure how to get a participle even with wiktionary's helpful tables. Death is the etymology I remember.
Kavunupupis, šiŋuputata.
When I see you pointing at me, I know I'm in trouble. (Play)
User avatar
Lao Kou
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 5089
Joined: 25 Nov 2012 10:39
Location: 蘇州/苏州

Re: False cognates

Post by Lao Kou »

:chn: :twn: 焙 bèi bake
:eng: bake
道可道,非常道
名可名,非常名
User avatar
Aevas
admin
admin
Posts: 1445
Joined: 11 May 2010 05:46
Location: ꜱᴇ

Re: False cognates

Post by Aevas »

en. scorch
fr. écorcher, ca. escorxar 'to skin'

I suppose the meanings aren't that close at a closer look, but the superficial similarity and the sense of damaging the surface of something made me believe they were cognates!
User avatar
Pabappa
greek
greek
Posts: 577
Joined: 18 Nov 2017 02:41

Re: False cognates

Post by Pabappa »

Old Japanese :jpn: upe:eng: "up"
Kavunupupis, šiŋuputata.
When I see you pointing at me, I know I'm in trouble. (Play)
shimobaatar
korean
korean
Posts: 10372
Joined: 12 Jul 2013 23:09
Location: UTC-04:00

Re: False cognates

Post by shimobaatar »

I wouldn't be surprised if this has been brought up before, but I couldn't find it in this thread. If I missed it, my apologies.

:jpn: あなた, あんた anata, anta "you"*
:arab: أنت ʾanta/ʾanti "you"*

*These are second person pronouns. ʾanta and ʾanti are the independent(/nominative?) forms of 2s.MASC and 2s.FEM, respectively. As with all Japanese pronouns, anata and anta carry certain connotations, more so than, for example, the English "you", so I wouldn't feel right just translating them as "you" and leaving it at that, but I also don't think I'm qualified to properly explain how exactly they're used. anata was explained to me as not being impolite, but also not being as polite as possible. It seems to be the 2nd person pronoun that foreigners are taught first. I think anta is a less-formal variant that can be either rude or endearing.
User avatar
Shemtov
runic
runic
Posts: 3283
Joined: 29 Apr 2013 04:06

Re: False cognates

Post by Shemtov »

"Channukah" and Bukharian /xunokijo/ "Coldness"
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien
Post Reply