• A new LGBTQ+ forum is now being trialed and there have been changes made to the Support and Advice forum. To read more about these updates, click here.
  • Hey Trainers! Be sure to check out Corsola Beach, our newest section on the forums, in partnership with our friends at Corsola Cove! At the Beach, you can discuss the competitive side of the games, post your favorite Pokemon memes, and connect with other Pokemon creators!
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

False cognates

Status
Not open for further replies.

Dark Espeon

Mage des Dark Arts
Joined
Aug 30, 2005
Messages
149
Reaction score
0
They can really mess you up, eh? =P

I think ye likely already know what it is...If ya don't, click here. Can ye guess what a false cognate is, then?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

attend/attendre/atender: to go somewhere (like a meeting I.e. Attend the meeting on Friday) [English]; to wait for somebody (French) and to pay attention or take care of somebody (Spanish)

créer/creer: to create (French); to believe (Spanish)

toilet/toilette: toilet (English); dress (French)

bless/blesser: to bless (English); to injure (French)

taco/tako: what ya eat @ Taco Bell (Spanish, English); octopus (Japanese) ***TIP (aka The Incarnation Pokémon) thought of this, not me =P. She's the one that told me about it =D.***

pastel/pastel: pastel (English); pie OR cake (Spanish)

tort/torta: wrong (French); pie (Spanish)

service/servicio: service (English); toilet (Cuban Spanish) :p
 
Last edited:
Yikes! That's rather odd....Although not surprising.....

go/go: Get outta here (English) ; #5 (Japanese)

saloon/shaloon: Western Bar (English) ; hairy monkey (Russian)

and now for the clincher....

gorilla/guerilla: large primate (English) ; peacekeeper in hiding (English)
 
Alakazam said:
gorilla/guerilla: large primate (English) ; peacekeeper in hiding (English)
That would double as an oxymoron and a satirical homonym too.
(Um.. yeah. I am an english dork.)
 
Here's one that one of my math professors had trouble with:
Pretend (English)/pretendre (French)

She kept saying things like "we pretend that..." in lectures, and it wasn't until I thought to check my French dictionary that I realized she meant "we claim that...".
 
A missionary living in a land where Spanish was the native language tried to explain that she'd made a mistake and was embarrassed but she used the Spanish word embarazada, which means 'pregnant.'
 
nekusagi-chan said:
That would double as an oxymoron and a satirical homonym too.
(Um.. yeah. I am an english dork.)
Yep, I know. :D

Just showing that you don't have to go to a different language to have some confusion there, eh?
 
Hmm, some of these aren't false [wp=Cognate]cognates[/wp] - indeed, some of them are very real cognates. Just that the meanings have drifted apart. attend/attendre and toilet/toilette, for example. These are [wp=False_friend]false friends[/wp].

These on the other hand are truly false cognates: Latin habere and English have are in fact not related - even though the meanings are so close - we know this because by examining the history of the languages, we find that a Germanic h should correspond to a Latin c. The real cognate is capere, which is cognate with the English capture - to seize, grasp, capture.
 
Zhen Lin said:
These on the other hand are truly false cognates: Latin habere and English have are in fact not related - even though the meanings are so close - we know this because by examining the history of the languages, we find that a Germanic h should correspond to a Latin c. The real cognate is capere, which is cognate with the English capture - to seize, grasp, capture.
Capere may be the closest or most direct cognate, but the sources I've looked at trace both habere and have to the same hypothetical Indo-European root.
 
Indeed. They are close. Latin habere < PIE *ghabh- (> English give). The entry for ghabh- even states at the end "compare kap-". Noting that k is to gh as t is to dh as p is to bh, it is a very intriguing pair.
 
Hmm, some of these aren't false cognates - indeed, some of them are very real cognates. Just that the meanings have drifted apart. attend/attendre and toilet/toilette, for example. These are false friends.

These on the other hand are truly false cognates: Latin habere and English have are in fact not related - even though the meanings are so close - we know this because by examining the history of the languages, we find that a Germanic h should correspond to a Latin c. The real cognate is capere, which is cognate with the English capture - to seize, grasp, capture.

Correct indeed :sweatlol:. I checked the links, and yeah, I confused the cognates with the faux amis :sweatlol:.

Hehe, to have and haber (Spanish) are false cognates too. Haber does not mean to have. It has a gazillion uses as a verb, and there is no exact English verb that is the equivalent of it. Will edit later to mention some of its uses (gotta go now).
 
Last edited:
I consider it a miracle when you find a commonly-used word that means exactly the same as another commonly-used word in another language. Well, closely related languages don't count.
 
There are a lot of interesting similarities between random languages and Japanese. For example:

mirar (sp) - to see
miru (jp) - to watch
 
fruitsmoothierevenge said:
There are a lot of interesting similarities between random languages and Japanese. For example:

mirar (sp) - to see
miru (jp) - to watch

woman (English)
womina (classical Japanese, modern equivalent onna) = (young) woman.
 
And there's always the ever-persistent Japanese arigatō and Portuguese obrigado.

Strange as it sounds, these random coincidences are far higher than one would expect. But that doesn't really prove anything, other than perhaps the human tendency to find patterns.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom