TIL about False cognates, pairs of words [with] similar sounds and meaning, but different etymologies; "For example, the English word dog and the Mbabaram word dog"
TIL about False cognates, pairs of words [with] similar sounds and meaning, but different etymologies; "For example, the English word dog and the Mbabaram word dog"
There is a table of examples in the link. Some I saw include:
Desert
- desert Latin dēserō ("to abandon") << ultimately PIE **seh₁- ("to sow")
- Ancient Egyptian: Deshret (refers to the land not flooded by the Nile) from dšr (red)
Shark
- shark Middle English shark from uncertain origin
- Chinese 鲨 (shā) Named as its crude skin similar to sand (沙 (shā))
Kayak
- Inuktitut ᖃᔭᖅ (kayak) Proto-Eskimo *qyaq
- Turkish kayık ('small boat')[17] Old Turkic kayguk << Proto-Turkic kay- ("to slide, to turn")
A lot of these could be TIL posts of their own.
I also wonder if some of these are actually false cognates, or if there is a much earlier common origin with false associations that came afterwards
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How did 'slave' become 'ciao'?
The image is simplifying it, but Italian borrowed the word from another Romance language, called Venetian. Latin sclauus /'skla.wus/ "slave, serf, servant" → Venetian scia(v)o /'stʃa(v)o/ "slave"→"bye". Then Italian borrowed it from Venetian, and it ended as ciao /tʃao/ because Italian hates that /stʃ/ cluster.
The meaning evolved this way because of mediaeval humility expressions, like "mi so' sciavo vostro". It means literally "I'm your servant", and it implies that I'm eager to fulfil some request that you might have.
A similar expression pops up in Southern German; see servus.
Ah okay, Christian medieval traditions are weird.
Very cool! This could go in [email protected] as a post of its own