Talk:Cognate
From Academic Kids
It has been calculated that if one takes a word from a language, there's a 40% ....
This figure seems to be to high, a reference is needed.
As for "dog" meaning "dog", I managed - intrigued as I was - to find this http://www.uselessfacts.info/6.html . Utterly pointless, obviously.
-Itai 01:59, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It has been calculated that if one takes a word from a language, there's a 40% ....
I agree that it should be referenced. I've searched for it in google but didn't succeed. I'm interested in reading how such a number came out, I guess that it is much much bigger between Spanish and Catalan, and probably much smaller between Spanish and !Kung...
I wonder how could have one conduct such an experiment. Perhaps that number comes from some theoritical derivations, but how could a reader know?
If we cannot support the claim with actual factual or published research, I think that it's better to remove the fact, even if it sounds so interesting, atractive and beautiful as this one.
-Germán 2004-02-16 09:42
In the following article, available at:
http://www.zompist.com/chance.htm
the author (Mark Rosenfelder) states:
"We haven't worked the numbers. Even trained linguists, though they know that random matches will occur, generally can't say how many."
That after a long discussion on random resemblance.
I'd like to change the article to take out the number '40%' and replace it by something like 'high number/more than expected' and somehow summarize the Ronsenfelder's article in a new article and point to it. Would it be correct?
What do you think?
-grh 12:02, 2004 Feb 20 (UTC)
- That phrase should be removed, if nothing else because it does not say what is meant by "roughly similar". The examples given -- "over" and "a'var" (do they mean the same thing?), "dog" and "dog" (ditto?) -- suggest that "similar" means "same consonants, similar vowels in similar places. If that is the case, then the figure is obvious much, mcuh less than 40%. Even between, say, German and French.
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Origins, roots and etymologies
A word's etymology is more than its origin. It includes its history. Cognates are words in two languages that have origins in a shared ancestor. This makes their origin the same, although their etymologies will be very different. The word "etymology" is loosely used commonly for "origin" but I don't think we should encourage it. Furthermore, root, particularly as concerns Indo-European, has a specific meaning in linguistics. A root is a core morpheme, particularly in verbs (so that "denk-" is the root of the German verb "denken" and "think" the root of its cognate in English). In IE studies roots are indeed original "words" but they are taken to be the original morphemes, rather than inflected words as such. This is a useful enough distinction to be worth keeping IMO, so I have edited the page to reflect it.Dr Zen 04:01, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Also, two words derived from the same IE root are called cognates only if they belong to two different languages. Same-language cognates (such as English grave and grief, royal and regal) are more properly called doublets. Psp 04:55, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- What about words such as "thatch" and "deck", coming from the same root, but where the wrd "deck" is borrowd from Dutch?
Milk
Afaik, "Milk" and "Leche" aren't cognates, but derive from two different IE words for milk. Also, russian Moloko might be a germanic borrowing.
- Moloko come from a IE root, it is no more a "germanic borrowing" in russian than it's would be a "slavic borrowing" in german. As for the 'moloko' vowel change, see Old East Slavic language, protoSlavic Melko or Mleko -> Moloko.
- You're absolutely right. I hadn't read that far. "Milk" is thought to come from a root meaning "wiping" or similar. "Milky Way" is a straight translation of the Latin "via lactea", not a parallel formation.Dr Zen 05:05, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Some philologists" trace a common IE root? Who? Can you give sources rather than weasel words? This is simply not true. They derive from very different roots.Dr Zen 08:14, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Also "galaktos" means "of the milk" in Greek, so one probably ought not to say that it "signifies" milk. I have re-edited the para in question. Please substantiate the part about the common IE origin before putting it back in.Dr Zen 08:19, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This guy (http://grzegorj.w.interia.pl/lingwen/iesem3.html) derives them from the same root but he doesn't describe how. How he gets "gala" from "mlagHt-" only he knows. It goes without saying that he'd need to show other words that have shown similar soundshifts (which I can't see that he does). Note this discussion (http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE318.html), which clearly indicates that two unrelated IE nouns are involved.Dr Zen 08:33, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Preobrazhensky's Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language gives an overview of various theories, including the common derivation theory. I'm happy if mention of the common derivation theory is left out, but in the interests of helpfulness, it really ought to be mentioned somewhere what galaktos, lait and leche roughly mean for the benefit of the general reader. Man vyi 11:54, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
- Maybe it's a particularly Slavic theory? If you really like the idea, perhaps it should be there. Maybe you could put "Preobrazhensky suggests that all of these words could ultimately be cognates" or something similar. I'll leave it to your judgement. I've put an explanation of the words' meaning. No problem at all if you want to word it differently.Dr Zen 12:38, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
40%
The article stated "It has been calculated that if one takes a word from a language, there's a 40% chance that one will find a word with roughly similar sound and meaning in another random, non-related language."
Many people have doubted this claim, and it has not been sourced. I've removed it. If anyone can find a source, please put it back in. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 14:22, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
Latin cotidianum, French quotidien, Irish cotiantach??
Some other false cognates from German are "Gift" which ironcially means poison, "Wiener" which means a person from Vienna or even "Hamburger" which can mean someone from Hamburg, Germany.
I removed these examples as they're not false cognates, but rather false friends. According to the German dictionary Der Sprach Brockhaus, "Gift" in Old High German meant what it does in English. "Hamburger" and "Wiener" are borrowings, and in German are simply adjectives which can denote anything from the respective cities (whether or not these are the true origins of the foods). --Damezi 14:20, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I've tried to explain the difference between false friends and false cognates. In short: if two words look or sound similar but have different meanings, they're false friends - but they can still be related. However, they're false cognates only if they have different origins - like English "have" and Latin "habere". --Damezi 00:53, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just a funny pair
These two are "false friends" through another language --
- "Minne" (in Swedish) = memories
- "Minne" (in Sicilian) = mammaries
Both are pronounced the same.
Neither cognates nor truly false friends, but somehow they seem related to me. Steve Rapaport 17:24, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Ok... =P Actually, the Swedish word is singular, "memories" would be "minnen". Nevertheless, it's still funny...
Definition
I don't know how you guys define cognate, but since English capture derives from the Latin word captura/captus by way of Old French, I do not consider that a cognate: cognates to me are words that independently derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root (in this case, PIE *kap, 'to grasp'): borrowed words don't count as cognates in my book. Decius 10:57, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
