False friends and other unfortunate coincidences

[Iyionaku]

Wait, you're telling me that word isn't Monegasque!?

Is Monegasque even a language? I always thought it's just a prestige dialect of Ligurian.

[Lambuzhao]

ⲥⲁⲃⲉ [sɑ.vε] means 'wise'. However, it is not at all related to saber 'to know' nor sabio 'wise'.

[Khemehekis]

ⲥⲁⲃⲉ [sɑ.vε] means 'wise'. However, it is not at all related to saber 'to know' nor sabio 'wise'.

Sounds like a false cognate, not a false friend.

See this thread: viewtopic.php?p=322473&#p322473

[k1234567890y]

Finnish Niko and Japanese にこ

Pre-anime Finnish people might expect Yazawa Nico to be a male if they only saw her name xdd

Also

Serbo-Croatian -ko (suffix for male names) v.s. Japanese -子(-ko) (suffix for female names)

[WeepingElf]

False friends are a major issue with a posteriori IALs, especially the so-called "naturalistic" ones (such as Occidental or IALA Interlingua), which use "international" Latinesque vocabulary that is "understood by everybody" at least in Europe: quite some of these words have different meanings in different languages, and easily lead to misunderstandings.

[WeepingElf]

A crass example:

bravo 'furious' vs. brav 'docile'

[k1234567890y]

False friends are a major issue with a posteriori IALs, especially the so-called "naturalistic" ones (such as Occidental or IALA Interlingua), which use "international" Latinesque vocabulary that is "understood by everybody" at least in Europe: quite some of these words have different meanings in different languages, and easily lead to misunderstandings.

right

while not making IALs, I have seen some false friends of English cognates when making a posteriori langs of natlang families.

[k1234567890y]

Also, in Brittany, pigs fly, because they call a magpie “pig”:

English pig v.s. Breton pig “magpie”

Also, in Italy, Pikachus may belong to the flying type:

Italian pica “magpie” v.s. Japanese ピカチュウ(pikachu) “a kind of fictional animal” v.s. English pika and pickup.

[WeepingElf]

bellen 'to ring' (of a bell) vs. bellen 'to bark' (of a dog)

There is a German joke:

Was haben Hunde und holländische Telefone gemeinsam? - Sie bellen.

[Imralu]

bellen 'to ring' (of a bell) vs. bellen 'to bark' (of a dog)

There is a German joke:

Was haben Hunde und holländische Telefone gemeinsam? - Sie bellen.

And bellend, German for "barking" (present participle) and in British and Irish English, the glans penis and an insult for a contemptible person.

[Arayaz]

English good night and Turkish günaydın "good morning"
English big and Irish beag "small"

And I can't resist adding:
English oh my gosh and Hungarian ő magas "s/he is tall" (the <s> is [ʃ])

[Visions1]

English Toffee
Eastern Aramaic Ṭəfei 'more, very well'

Really this isn't so unfortunate. :)

[Creyeditor]

Indonesian jam 'hour' and Indonesian jaman 'era' are not directly related even though there is a productive nominal derivational suffix -an that could explain the relation between the two forms. But according to Wiktionary jaman is borrowed from Persian zaman and jam is borrowed from Sanskrit yama. The two forms might actually go back to the same Proto-Indo-Iranian form *ǰámaHnas, making the two forms distantly related cousins.

[Shemtov]

jam is
The two forms might actually go back to the same Proto-Indo-Iranian form *ǰámaHnas, making the two forms distantly related cousins.

Huh, I always thought the Persian was a borrowing from the Arabic, and that it is a Semitic term, as it also exists in Hebrew and Aramaic. I guess the Persian form could be reborrowed? In Orthodox Jewish English, the Hebrew word has been loaned (maybe with some Yiddish influence) to mean "The times of day that effect daily and weekly religious ritual, and have some relevance for festivals."

[Creyeditor]

Wiktionary says Imperial Aramaic borrowed it from Persian and then it spread into other Semitic languages.

[k1234567890y]

Finnish hikari ("swot, nerd") v.s. Japanese Hikari/ひかり/光 (female personal name meaning "light")

[Arayaz]

Finnish hikari ("swot, nerd") v.s. Japanese Hikari/ひかり/光 (female personal name meaning "light")

And Japanese hikaru 光る "to stand out/be excellent"

[WeepingElf]

I still am sometimes confused by the Insular Celtic definite articles resembling Germanic and Romance indefinite ones:

an, yn etc. vs. a(n), un etc.

[sangi39]

I still am sometimes confused by the Insular Celtic definite articles resembling Germanic and Romance indefinite ones:

an, yn etc. vs. a(n), un etc.

Hunagarian too with a~az for the definite article, with the same "a before a consonant, the other form before a vowel rule" as the English indefinite

[Shemtov]

I still am sometimes confused by the Insular Celtic definite articles resembling Germanic and Romance indefinite ones:

an, yn etc. vs. a(n), un etc.

Hunagarian too with a~az for the definite article, with the same "a before a consonant, the other form before a vowel rule" as the English indefinite

Of course, this is more of an orthographical false friend, since in English, the <a> form is pronounced, based on stress, either /eɪ/ or /ə/, while the Hungarian is /ɒ/.