False cognates

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WeepingElf
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Re: False cognates

Post by WeepingElf »

German Kapuze means 'hood' rather than 'coat', but the etymology you give is IMHO probably correct.
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k1234567890y
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Re: False cognates

Post by k1234567890y »

English stall and stable(noun.)

The former is ultimately from PIE *stel-; the latter is ultimately from PIE *steh₂-; however, it is possible that *stel- is a root extension of *steh₂-, if *stel- is a root extension of *steh₂-, the the English words will be true cognates, though a pretty distant one.

I posted this because I just found out that the Romanian cognate of English stable(noun.) is staul, which is reasonably similar to stall in spelling and pronounciation.
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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Re: False cognates

Post by WeepingElf »

k1234567890y wrote: 15 Jul 2022 20:38 English stall and stable(noun.)

The former is ultimately from PIE *stel-; the latter is ultimately from PIE *steh₂-; however, it is possible that *stel- is a root extension of *steh₂-, if *stel- is a root extension of *steh₂-, the the English words will be true cognates, though a pretty distant one.
I am not sure, but I do think that *stel- is indeed related to *steh₂- in some way. It would surprise me if there was no connection at all.
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Re: False cognates

Post by k1234567890y »

WeepingElf wrote: 15 Jul 2022 20:45
k1234567890y wrote: 15 Jul 2022 20:38 English stall and stable(noun.)

The former is ultimately from PIE *stel-; the latter is ultimately from PIE *steh₂-; however, it is possible that *stel- is a root extension of *steh₂-, if *stel- is a root extension of *steh₂-, the the English words will be true cognates, though a pretty distant one.
I am not sure, but I do think that *stel- is indeed related to *steh₂- in some way. It would surprise me if there was no connection at all.
you are right, *stel- could be a root extension of *steh₂-, but currently we are not sure about this.
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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Sequor
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Re: False cognates

Post by Sequor »

English mirror < Old French mireor (literally "watcher")
Arabic مرآة mirʔā 'mirror' (formed with the mi- instrument prefix and the root r-ʔ-y, cf. the verb رأى‎ raʔā 'to see')

Although French Wiktionary informs me that at least one etymologist (Antoine-Paulin Pihan) thinks the French word is a borrowing from Arabic. I doubt it though: Ibero-Romance doesn't have the Arabic borrowing, Catalan has a similar formation but using a different suffix (mirall), and Old English apparently had sċēawere which is also literally "watcher"—maybe it's a calque in some direction or other.
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Re: False cognates

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English corner (a borrowing from Anglo-Norman / Old French, derived from Latin cornū 'horn')
Sanskrit कोण koṇa- 'corner' (a borrowing from Dravidian)
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Re: False cognates

Post by Shemtov »

Shoshoni /nɨwɨ/ "Shoshoni Person" vs Nahuatl <Nahua> /Nawa/ "Nahua Person". Despite being self-designations for Uto-Aztecan speaking people, that are of the form /nVwV/ these are unrelated. First of all, Shoshoni /ɨ/ corresponds to Nahuan /e/. Second of all, /w/ in Shoshoni can come from PUA *m, and there are other Numic languages where the form is /nɨmɨ/, and the *m>w shift is unique to Central Numic, and has no convergent shift elsewhere in UA .
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Re: False cognates

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Korean 많이 'a lot', pronounced [mani]
English many
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Re: False cognates

Post by Sequor »

Hebrew דֶּרֶךְ dérekh 'road'
Russian доро́га 'road'
Mandarin 道路 dàolù 'road'
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Re: False cognates

Post by k1234567890y »

Arabic وَسَط‎ (wasaṭ) "middle, centre, waist" / Egyptian Arabic وسط‎ (weṣṭ) "middle, centre, waist"

English waist
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Re: False cognates

Post by qwed117 »

:usa: English bezel vs. :usa: bevel, both referring to sloping edges that are not perpendicular to a face, the former in gemstone cutting, and the latter in most other uses.

Both words are from Old French. Bezel is from biseau, a variant of bijou 'gem', from a Breton bisoù 'ring'. Bevel is from French baïf "open-mouthed, gaping", from Medieval Latin bado, 'to yawn', of onomatopoeic origin.
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Re: False cognates

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:eng: heriot - a payment made to a lord on the death of tenant

I thought the word might be connected to heir and heritage, so ultimately from Latin heres. The TV program that used the term said a heriot allowed a family to inherit the land lease from their dead family member. Also, -ot looks like a French diminutive. Turns out the term is purely Germanic, from OE hereġeatwa, which literally means "army gear." That makes more sense in light of another meaning Wiktionary gives: the return of military equipment.
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Re: False cognates

Post by DesEsseintes »

Pawnee: piita(a)rau - husband
Sanskrit: पितरौ pitarau - father.DU.NOM
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Re: False cognates

Post by Sequor »

GrandPiano wrote: 09 Dec 2016 05:42:hkg: 切 cit3 "to cut; to slice" - :eng: cut
Also Vietnamese cắt, which is unrelated to the Chinese terms 切 cit3 and 割 got3 'to cut', cắt being < Proto-Mon-Khmer *kac 'to pluck, break'

Vietnamese bò 'water buffalo; cow'
Latin bōs 'cow, bull, ox' < PIE *gʷṓws

English better
Persian بهتر behtar 'better' < from به beh 'good' (< Middle Persian weh < Old Persian vahu) + comparative تر -tar
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Re: False cognates

Post by k1234567890y »

Chinese 蘿蔔 /lwɔ³⁵ b̥wɔ³/ v.s. Proto-Germanic *rōbǭ (cf. Standard German Rübe Swedish ruva)
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Re: False cognates

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k1234567890y wrote: 04 Nov 2022 19:21 Chinese 蘿蔔 /lwɔ³⁵ b̥wɔ³/ v.s. Proto-Germanic *rōbǭ (cf. Standard German Rübe Swedish ruva)
Would you mind giving glosses? Most of us have no idea what the Chinese word even means.
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Re: False cognates

Post by k1234567890y »

WeepingElf wrote: 04 Nov 2022 20:07
k1234567890y wrote: 04 Nov 2022 19:21 Chinese 蘿蔔 /lwɔ³⁵ b̥wɔ³/ v.s. Proto-Germanic *rōbǭ (cf. Standard German Rübe Swedish ruva)
Would you mind giving glosses? Most of us have no idea what the Chinese word even means.
Chinese 蘿蔔 means "radish" and is also used in words indicating "carrot"; also 蘿蔔 itself does not seem to be a morpheme.
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Re: False cognates

Post by k1234567890y »

more:

Chinese /tʰaɪ̯³⁵/ "tower; lookout; stage; platform; support; stand; base; etc." v.s. English dais
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Re: False cognates

Post by Sequor »

k1234567890y wrote: 08 Nov 2022 07:07Chinese /tʰaɪ̯³⁵/ "tower; lookout; stage; platform; support; stand; base; etc." v.s. English dais
Not to mention 塔 tǎ 'stupa, pagoda, tower', plus the word "tower" itself...

I got the following regarding Mandarin from a website years ago, and I had forgotten to post them here. I made sure none of the following have been posted in the thread before.

背後 bèihòu 'behind'
English behind

簿 bù (bound morpheme meaning 'book'; appears in e.g. 相簿 xiàngbù 'photo album', 電話簿 diànhuàbù 'telephone directory')
English book

唱 chàng 'to sing'
French chanter 'to sing'

旦 dàn 'dawn'
English dawn

菲薄 fěibó 'meagre, humble, low-quality'
English feeble

過 guò 'to go over/through'
English go

忽然 hūrán 'suddenly'
English hurrying

譏 jī 'to jeer at, mock someone'
English jeer

決定 juédìng 'to decide'
Latin jūdicāre 'to judge, be a judge'

肯 kěn 'be willing to (do something)'
English can

口語 kǒuyǔ 'spoken language'
English koine

酷似 kùsì 'to resemble someone a lot' (like a child and their parents)
Latin/English quasi

蕾 lěi 'flower bud' (commonly used as a given name)
Hawaiian/English lei

馬 mǎ 'horse'
English mare < Proto-Germanic *marhijō

美麗 měilì 'beautiful'
Latin mel 'honey; darling' (attested as a term of endearment in Plautus and Cicero)

面 miàn 'face'
Latin mēns 'mind'

牧童 mùtóng 'shepherd (boy)'
English mutton

盤 pán 'plate, tray'
English pan

鯊 shā 'shark'
English shark

身體 shēntǐ 'body; one's health'
English sanity

實 shí (bound morpheme meaning 'true, real'), pronounced [ʂɨ˧˥]
English sure

師傅 shīfu 'master (of an art)'
English chief

頌歌 sònggē 'carol, hymn song'
English song

搜查 sōuchá 'to search'
English to search

孫 sūn (bound morpheme meaning 'grandchild, descendant' as in 孫子 sūnzi 'grandson')
English son

Classical Chinese 涕 tì 'tear'
English tear

投 tóu 'to throw'
English throw

偉大 wěidà 'huge, great; grand'
English wide

轉 zhuǎn 'to turn', pronounced [ʈʂwæn˨˩˧]
English to turn
GrandPiano wrote: 21 Jan 2015 21:10 How about English "give" and Mandarin "gěi" (traditional 給, simplified 给)?
This word used to have a -p even! As in the Cantonese pronunciation kap1.
Last edited by Sequor on 08 Nov 2022 22:13, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: False cognates

Post by k1234567890y »

@Sequor nice (:

however, there's at least one pair of word that might be true cognates:
馬 mǎ 'horse'
English mare < Proto-Germanic *marhijō
The Proto Germanic *marhijō is from Proto-Germanic *marhaz, which in turn from Proto-Indo-European *márkos, and the Proto-Indo-European word might be from a wanderwort across Eurasian languages and is said to be from the same source as Proto-Sino-Tibetan *k-m-raŋ ~ s-raŋ, and the Proto-Sino-Tibetan word gives rise to Old Chinese 馬 /*mˤraʔ/ (B-S), /*mraːʔ/ (ZS) ("horse"), the direect ancestor of Mandarin 馬 mǎ 'horse'. Also compare the word to Mongolian морь (morĭ, “horse”), Manchu morin, “horse”, etc.
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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