False cognates thread

[Lior_C]

אריה: Ariyeh. Lion
Aria: An operatic music scene

[WeepingElf]

אריה: Ariyeh. Lion
Aria: An operatic music scene

What you are posting aren't false cognates. False cognates are words that look as if they have a common source (either through descent from a common ancestor of the two languages, or through borrowing) because they resemble each other in sound and meaning, but actually are of different, unrelated origins. A classic example is Latin deus vs. Greek theós, both meaning 'god', and Latin and Greek being languages known to be related to each other - but actually, the phonemes do not match, and the words are from different roots. What you post are just word pairs that resemble each other in sound only, while the meanings are unrelated. Why, for instance, should a Hebrew word for 'lion' have anything to do with a similar-sounding Italian word for something entirely different, namely a particular kind of passage in an opera? Nobody could mistake them for cognates!

[Lior_C]

Thanks for clarifying. I though false friends were similar sounding words that meant different things and that didn't necessarily need to be related or similar origins

[WeepingElf]

Thanks for clarifying. I though false friends were similar sounding words that meant different things and that didn't necessarily need to be related or similar origins

The notions false cognate and false friend are often confused. False cognates are words where, as I said, one would expect a common origin that actually doesn't exist. False friends are words which are misleading to foreign language learners because they seem to be "the same word" but mean different things. That can be quite embarrassing, as with Italian fagotto, German Fagott etc., all perfectly innocent words meaning 'bassoon' (a musical instrument), while the similar-sounding English word is a derogative term for a homosexual person. False friends are also a problem with a posteriori international auxiliary languages like Esperanto. Often, indeed, false friends are true cognates, or at least borrowings from a common source, that have developed different meanings in the various languages.

[Linguoboy]

Why, for instance, should a Hebrew word for 'lion' have anything to do with a similar-sounding Italian word for something entirely different, namely a particular kind of passage in an opera? Nobody could mistake them for cognates!

I think "nobody" is a little optimistic. I could easily see someone making the leap between "lion's roar" and "operatic aria" and thinking there was a cognate relationship. I've seen much much weirder proposals in my time.

[Qwynegold]

I'll just leave my observations here:

Swedish så [ˈsoː] (so) vs. Japanese そう [soː] (so)
(The reason I'm comparing Swedish and not English to Japanese here, is because the Swedish usage is more similar to the Japanese usage)

Swedish ni [ˈniː] (2PL) vs. Mandarin 你 [ni˨˩˧] (2SG)

Swedish ej [ˈɛjː] (not) vs. Finnish ei [ˈe͡i] (NEG.AUX-3SG) vs. Japanese いいえ [iːe] (no).