| Revision as of 23:22, 19 September 2017 editRua (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users7,765 edits Undid revision 801480228 by Joeyburton489 (talk) - Never heard of loanwords?← Previous edit | Revision as of 23:55, 19 September 2017 edit undoLeonardomicheli297 (talk | contribs)1 edit There is no cognates in the same language. Cognates are words that are taken from different languages.Tags: section blanking Mobile edit Mobile web editNext edit → | ||
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| Some cognates are semantic opposites. For instance, while the Hebrew word {{lang|he|חוצפה}} '']'' means "impudence," its ] cognate {{lang|ar|حصافة}} ''ḥaṣāfah'' means "sound judgment."<ref>{{cite book|last=Wehr|first=Hans|authorlink=Hans Wehr |editor= J. Milton Cowan| title=] |origyear=1979 |year=1994 |publisher=Spoken Language Services, Inc. |location=], ] |isbn=0-87950-003-4}} | Some cognates are semantic opposites. For instance, while the Hebrew word {{lang|he|חוצפה}} '']'' means "impudence," its ] cognate {{lang|ar|حصافة}} ''ḥaṣāfah'' means "sound judgment."<ref>{{cite book|last=Wehr|first=Hans|authorlink=Hans Wehr |editor= J. Milton Cowan| title=] |origyear=1979 |year=1994 |publisher=Spoken Language Services, Inc. |location=], ] |isbn=0-87950-003-4}} | ||
| </ref> English '']'' and Polish '']'', meaning ], are cognates with opposite meanings, both deriving from the Proto-Indo-European {{PIE|]}} "to burn or shine". | </ref> English '']'' and Polish '']'', meaning ], are cognates with opposite meanings, both deriving from the Proto-Indo-European {{PIE|]}} "to burn or shine". | ||
| ==Within the same language== | |||
| Cognates within a single language, or '']'', may have meanings that are slightly or even totally different. For example, English ''ward'' and ''guard'' (<PIE '']'', "to perceive, watch out for") are cognates, as are ''shirt'' (garment on top) and ''skirt'' (garment on bottom) (<PIE '']'', "to cut"). In some cases, including this one, one cognate ("skirt") has an ultimate source in another language related to English,<ref>{{cite web |last= Harper |first= Douglas |date= |title= skirt (n.).|url= http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=skirt |work= Online Etymology Dictionary |location= |access-date=2017-06-16 | archiveurl= | archivedate= | quote=early 14c., "lower part of a woman's dress," from Old Norse ''skyrta'' "shirt, a kind of kirtle" }}</ref> but the other one ("shirt") is native.<ref>{{cite web |last= Harper |first= Douglas |date= |title= shirt (n.).|url= http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=shirt |work= Online Etymology Dictionary |location= |access-date=2017-06-16 | archiveurl= | archivedate= | quote=Old English ''scyrte'' "skirt, tunic," from Proto-Germanic *''skurtjon'' "a short garment" }}</ref> That happened with many loanwords, such as ''skirt'' in this example, which was borrowed from ] during the ]. | |||
| Sometimes both doublets come from other languages, often the same one but at different times. For example, the word ''chief'' (meaning the leader of any group) comes from the ] ''chef'' ("head"), and its modern pronunciation preserves the Middle French consonant sound; the word ''chef'' (the leader of the cooks) was borrowed from the same source centuries later, but by then, the consonant had changed to a "sh" sound in French. Such word sets can also be called ], and of course, they may come in groups of higher numbers, as with, for example, the words ''wain'' (native), ''waggon/wagon'' (Dutch), and ''vehicle'' (Latin) in English. | |||
| A word may also ], develop a new form or meaning there, and be re-borrowed into the original language; that is called ]. For example, the Greek word ''κίνημα'' (''kinima'', "movement") became French ''cinéma'' (compare American English ''movie'') and then later returned to Greece as ''σινεμά'' (''sinema'', "the art of film", "movie theater"). In Greece, ''κίνημα'' (''kinima'', "movement") and ''σινεμά'' (''sinema'', "filmmaking, cinema") are now doublets.<ref>In fact, ''σινεμά'' stands beside a Greek ] based on the original form of the same root, ''κινηματογράφος'' (''kinimatoγráfos''), with the same two meanings as ''cinéma''/''σινεμά''. (The film or movie itself is the unrelated ''ταινία'' (''tainia'').)</ref> | |||
| Less-obvious English-language doublets are '']'' and '']''. | |||
| ==False cognates== | ==False cognates== | ||
Revision as of 23:55, 19 September 2017
For other uses, see Cognate (disambiguation).
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. In etymology, the cognate category excludes doublets and loanwords. The word cognate derives from the Latin noun cognatus, which means "blood relative".
Characteristics
Cognates do not need to have the same meaning, which may have changed as the languages developed separately. For example English starve and Dutch sterven or German sterben ("to die") all derive from the same Proto-Germanic root, *sterbaną ("die"). English dish and German Tisch ("table"), with their flat surfaces, both come from Latin discus, but their later meanings are different. Discus is from Greek δίσκος (from the verb δικεῖν "to throw"). A later and separate English reflex of discus, probably through medieval Latin desca, is desk (see OED s.v. desk).
Cognates also do not need to have similar forms: English father, French père, and Armenian հայր (hayr) all descend directly from Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr.
Across languages
Examples of cognates in Indo-European languages are the words night (English), nuit (French), noche (Spanish), Nacht (German), nacht (Dutch), nag (Afrikaans), nicht (Scots), natt (Swedish, Norwegian), nat (Danish), nátt (Faroese), nótt (Icelandic), noc (Czech, Slovak, Polish), ночь, noch (Russian), ноќ, noć (Macedonian), нощ, nosht (Bulgarian), ніч, nich (Ukrainian), ноч, noch/noč (Belarusian), noč (Slovene), noć (Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian), νύξ, nyx (Ancient Greek, νύχτα/nychta in Modern Greek), nox/nocte (Latin), nakt- (Sanskrit), natë (Albanian), nos (Welsh), nueche (Asturian), noite (Portuguese and Galician), notte (Italian), nit (Catalan), nuèch/nuèit (Occitan), noapte (Romanian), nakts (Latvian), naktis (Lithuanian) and Naach (Colognian), all meaning "night" and being derived from the Proto-Indo-European *nókʷts "night".
Another Indo-European example is star (English), str- (Sanskrit), tara (Hindustani and Bengali), tora (Assamese), astre/étoile (French), ἀστήρ (astēr) (Greek or ἀστέρι/ἄστρο, asteri/astro in Modern Greek), astro/stella (Italian), aster (Latin) stea (Romanian and Venetian), stairno (Gothic), astl (Armenian), Stern (German), ster (Dutch and Afrikaans), Schtähn (Colognian), starn (Scots), stjerne (Norwegian and Danish), stjarna (Icelandic), stjärna (Swedish), stjørna (Faroese), setāre (Persian), stoorei (Pashto), seren (Welsh), steren (Cornish), estel (Catalan), estela (Occitan) estrella and astro Spanish, estrella Asturian and Leonese, estrela and astro (Portuguese and Galician) and estêre or stêrk (Kurdish), from the Proto-Indo-European *h₂stḗr "star".
The Hebrew שלום shalom, the Arabic سلام salām, the Assyrian Neo-Aramaic shlama and the Amharic selam ("peace") are also cognates, derived from the Proto-Semitic *šalām- "peace".
Cognates may often be less easily recognised than the above examples, and authorities sometimes differ in their interpretations of the evidence. The English word milk is clearly a cognate of German Milch, Dutch melk, Russian молоко (moloko) and (Bosnian, Serbian, Slovenian mleko Croatian) also Montenegrin mlijeko. On the other hand, French lait, Catalan llet, Italian latte, Romanian lapte, Spanish leche and leite (Portuguese and Galician) (all meaning "milk") are less-obvious cognates of Ancient Greek γάλακτος gálaktos (genitive singular of γάλα gála, "milk"), a relationship that is more evidently seen through the intermediate Latin lac "milk" as well as the English word lactic and other terms borrowed from Latin. All of them come from Proto-Indo-European h₂melǵ- "milk".
Some cognates are semantic opposites. For instance, while the Hebrew word חוצפה chutzpah means "impudence," its Classical Arabic cognate حصافة ḥaṣāfah means "sound judgment." English black and Polish biały, meaning white, are cognates with opposite meanings, both deriving from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰleg- "to burn or shine".
False cognates
False cognates are words that people commonly believe are related (have a common origin), but that linguistic examination reveals are unrelated. For example, on the basis of superficial similarities, the Latin verb habēre and German haben, both meaning 'to have', appear to be cognates. However, because of the way words in the two languages evolved from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots, they cannot be cognate (see for example Grimm's law). German haben, like English have, comes from PIE *kh₂pyé- 'to grasp', and its real cognate in Latin is capere, 'to seize, grasp, capture'. Latin habēre, on the other hand, is from PIE *gʰabʰ, 'to give, to receive', and hence cognate with English give and German geben.
Likewise, English much and Spanish mucho look similar and have a similar meaning but are not cognates, as they evolved from different roots: much from Proto-Germanic *mikilaz < PIE *meǵ- and mucho from Latin multum < PIE *mel-.
See also
- Cognate object
- Figura etymologica
- Historical linguistics
- Interlingual homograph
- Lists of words having different meanings in American and British English
References
- Crystal, David, ed. (2011). "cognate". A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (6th ed.). Blackwell Publishing. p. 104. ISBN 978-1-4443-5675-5. OCLC 899159900. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|editorlink=ignored (|editor-link=suggested) (help) - "cognate", The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed.: "Latin cognātus: co-, co- + gnātus, born, past participle of nāscī, to be born." Other definitions of the English word include "elated by blood; having a common ancestor" and "elated or analogous in nature, character, or function".
- Compare also Greek ἀμέλγω amelgō "to milk".
- Wehr, Hans (1994) . J. Milton Cowan (ed.). Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. Urbana, Illinois: Spoken Language Services, Inc. ISBN 0-87950-003-4.
- Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben
- Ringe, Don. "A quick introduction to language change" (PDF). Univ. of Pennsylvania: Linguistics 001 (Fall 2011). ¶ 29. pp. 11–12. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
Further reading
- Rubén Morán (2011), 'Cognate Linguistics', Kindle Edition, Amazon.