Surprising cognates

[Shemtov]

This is a thread for cognates with different meanings, but are not so phonologically close as to be considered "False Friends".
<Cher> "dear" vs. <Caro> "Expensive" vs. /ka:ja/ "game" vs. <Whore> <Hure> "Whore" <Hora> "Whore" <Hore> "Whore <ку́рва> "Whore" <Kurva> "Whore" <Kurwa> "Whore" <Kurvë> "Whore" <curvă> "Whore" Yiddish /kurvə/ "Whore"
All from PIE *keh₂ "To desire"

[shimobaatar]

[GrandPiano]

Are you saying that the French language as a whole is a surprising cognate, or was this simply a typo?

[sangi39]

Are you saying that the French language as a whole is a surprising cognate, or was this simply a typo?

Shemtov originally used the Quebec flag for the French language, saying they couldn't find just the flag of France. I think Shimobaatar was saying we do have one. OP's been edited now so there's no context

[GrandPiano]

Ah, that makes sense, then.

[shimobaatar]

Are you saying that the French language as a whole is a surprising cognate, or was this simply a typo?

Shemtov originally used the Quebec flag for the French language, saying they couldn't find just the flag of France. I think Shimobaatar was saying we do have one. OP's been edited now so there's no context

Bingo. I should have quoted what the flag was in response to, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that the context might be edited away later.

[Shemtov]

Yeah, I should have made a note of the edit, or replied to Shimobaatar's post by saying "Thanks, you gave me the flag. Fixed now."

[clawgrip]

temper
てんぷら tempura

temperare → OE temperen → temper
　　　　　　→ temperar: tempero/tempera → tempura


head
瓦 kawara "roof tile"

PIE *kapōlo → PIE *kauput- → PG *haubudą → OE hēafod → head
　　　　　→ Indo-Aryan kapā́las → Sanskrit कपाल kapāla‎ → 瓦 kawara

[clawgrip]

جبة jubbah "Arab traditional outer garment"
襦袢 juban "Japanese traditional inner garment"

From Arabic via gibão/jubão "Old Portuguese garment" ??

[GrandPiano]

This might not be exactly what you were looking for, but I was pretty surprised to find out that Chinese languages had any cognates with European languages other than perhaps the word "China" dating back to any earlier than the past century or two. As it turns out, there are (possibly) at least two:

(Using the Mandarin pronunciations, though these characters primarily appear in compound words in Mandarin rather than as words on their own)

丝 sī (traditional 絲) "silk"
silk

Old/Middle(?) Chinese 絲 *sɨ (reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciation) → Mandarin 丝/絲 sī (and its equivalents in other Sinitic languages)
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　→ Σήρ (Sḗr) "the Seres" (i.e. northern Chinese) → σηρικός (sērikós) "silken" → sericus "silken" → (unclear intermediate steps) → OE sioloc, seoloc, seolc → English silk


蜜 mì "honey"
mead

PIE *médʰu "honey; mead" → Proto-Tocharian *ḿət(ə) → Old Chinese 蜜 *mit "honey" → Mandarin 蜜 mì (and its equivalents in other Sinitic languages)
　　　　　　　　　　　　→ Proto-Germanic *meduz "mead" → OE medu, meodo → English mead


(These etymologies are from Wiktionary, and are all hypothetical)

[clawgrip]

Personally I think these are pretty interesting, and they fit the thread title of "surprising cognates" (they're the same type of thing as what I posted as well).

Here is another one:
know
禅 zen

PIE *ǵneh₃- → PG knēaną → OE cnāwan → know
　　　　　　→ Sanskrit ज्ञा jñā "know": ज्ञान jñāna‎ "knowledge" → Middle Chinese 禪 d͡ʑiᴇn → 禅 zen

[Creyeditor]

head
瓦 kawara "roof tile"

PIE *kapōlo → PIE *kauput- → PG *haubudą → OE hēafod → head
　　　　　→ Indo-Aryan kapā́las → Sanskrit कपाल kapāla‎ → 瓦 kawara

You can add Indonesian kepala, (also from Sanskrit) which is not suprising because is has a different meaning (It also means head.), but because it looks like an Indonesian word, it doesn't look like 'head' and because I still find borrowing of body parts a bit crazy (I know, a lot of European languages did it, though.).

Edit: Also bahasa fās
PIE: *bʰéh₂-os ~ *bʰéh₂-es-os 'speak, say' → fas 'the will of god'
　　　　　→ PIA: *bʰāṣā → Sanskrit: भाषा bhāṣā → bahasa 'language'

bahu 'shoulder' Bug ' bow, prow (of a ship)'
PIE: *bʰeh₂ǵʰus 'arm' →PG: *bōguz 'arm, shoulder' → OHG: buog 'animal shoulder' → Bug
　　　　　→ PII: bʰaHĵʰúš 'arm' → Sanskrit बाहु bāhu 'forearm' → bahu 'shoulder'


bumi 'earth' be

PIE: *bʰewH 'to become, grow, appear' → PG: *beuną 'to be, to become' → Old English: bēon → be
　　　　　→ PII: *bʰávati → Sanskrit भू bhū 'to become' → Sanskrit भूमि bhūmi 'stage, limit; earth' → bumi 'earth'

desa 'village' toe

PIE: deyḱ 'to point out' → PG: taihwǭ 'toe' → toe
　　　　　→PIA: daiśás 'point, region, part' → देश deśá 'point, region, spot, place, part, portion' → desa 'village'

[Shemtov]

This is theoretical, but Shekel (the Israeli currency) and Scallion are related. Shekel comes from the Semitic root ʃ-q-l "To weigh", meaning "Weighable currency" while Scallion comes from Latin <caepa Ascalonius> "Ashkelonian Onion" and "Ashkelon" probably means "the city of weighing", also from ʃ-q-l , given its ancient status as a center of trade

[Creyeditor]

pria 'young man' and friend

PIE: *priHós 'beloved' → PG: *frijaz 'free' → frijōną 'to love' → *frijōndz 'loved one' → friend
　　　　　→ Sanskrit: प्रिय priya 'dear, sweetheart'→ pria 'young man'

[Shemtov]

Baphomet and /ħɛmdaθ jɔmijm/ (Tiberian) /xɛmdat jamijm/ (Israeli) /xɛmdas jɔmijm/ (Ashkenazi) "Lit. [Most] Desired of days; A poetic title of the Sabbath". Baphomet seems to be a corruption of Arabic Muḥammad, whom the crusaders falsely believed was a Demonic "Islamic Deity" and Muḥammad comes from the Semitic root ħ-m-d "Desire" as does /ħɛmdaθ jɔmijm/.

[Dormouse559]

English fraught and freight are cognate. They both ultimately come from Middle Dutch vracht/vrecht. It seems as though fret (in the sense of a marker on a guitar) may also be connected, through French. But I get conflicting answers on its etymology.

[eldin raigmore]

@Dormouse; that "fraught" and "freight" are cognate does not surprise me. That "fret" is (or might be) cognate to both of them does!

[Adarain]

kheia “to fall” as well as geheien “to throw” are cognate with huwen “to marry”, from *hīwijaną “to marry”. No cognate in Standard German that I am aware of, and the English cognates have also fallen out of use. This comes from a sequence of pretty wild semantic shifts that can be traced in old documents between Old High German (where it still meant “marry”) and the modern varieties and it goes something like this “to marry” → “to copulate, fuck” → “to rape” → “to plague” → “to hit” → “to throw” (→ “to fall”), all within about a millenium at best. Luxembourgish seems to accept some of the older semantic variants still, whereas in Swiss German (read: at least in my dialect) it prototypically definitely means “to fall” but can be used as “to throw” when used with some adverbial of directionality.

[Creyeditor]

I think the first part of 'Heirat' is distantly related via PGmc 'hiwô'.

[sangi39]

I think the first part of 'Heirat' is distantly related via PGmc 'hiwô'.

Wiktionary at least agrees with you. It's from *hiwô + *raidīniz