Cognates

By Mariana Fernández

Linguistics I

2010

Cognates:

• Are words that have a common etymological origin.

• An example of cognates within the same language would be shirt and skirt, the first from Old English scyrte, the second from loaned from Old Norse skyrta, both from the same Common Germanic skurfjon.

Cognates

• A word related to one in another language

• Related in origin, as certain words in generally related languages descended from the same ancestral root; for example, English name and Latin nomen from Indo-European ·no-men-.

• The word cognates derives from Latin cognatus, “blood relative”

Characteristics of cognates

• Cognates need not have the same meaning: dish (English) and tisch (“table”Genrman) and desco (table, medieval Italian), or starve (English) and sterben (“die”, German),or head (English) and xhef (“chief, head”, French), serve as examples as to how cognate term may diverge in meaning as languages develop separately, eventually becoming false friends.

Cognates across languages• Examples in Indo-European languages are the

words night (English), nuit (French), Nacht (German), nacht (Dutch), nicht (Scots) natt (Swedish, Norwegian), nat (Danish), raat (Urdu), nátt (Faroese), nótt (Icelandic), noc (Czech, Slovak, Polish), ночь, noch (Russian), ноќ, noć (Macedonian), нощ, nosht (Bulgarian), ніч, nich (Ukrainian), ноч, noch/noč (Belarusian), noć (Croatian), ноћ/noć (Serbian), νύξ, nyx (Ancient Greek, νύχτα/nyhta in Modern Greek), nox (Latin), etc.

• noche (Spanish), nos (Welsh), noite (Portuguese and Galician), notte (Italian), nit (Catalan), noapte (Romanian), nakts (Latvian) and naktis (Lithuanian), all meaning "night" and derived from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *nókʷts, "night".

• Cognates may often be less easily recognised • The English word milk is clearly a cognate of

German Milch, Russian молоко (moloko)• and Croatian mlijeko. On the other hand, French

lait and Spanish leche (both meaning "milk") are less obviously cognates of Ancient Greek γάλακτος (genitive singular of γάλα, "milk") , a relationship more evidently seen through the intermediate Latin lac "milk", as well as the English word lactic and other terms borrowed from Latin

False cognates

• There are literally tousands of words that are the same or similar in appearence in English and Spanish, and have the same meaning in both languages “cognates”. There are also, however, many instances where appearances are deceiving and words that look alike are quite different in meaning “false cognates”.

• Are words that are commonly thought to be related (have a common origin) whereas linguistic examination reveals they are unrelated

FALSE COGNATESSometimes a word in Spanish will sound like or seem like a similar one in English.

In the Spanish language there are a number of false cognates like this. So you have to be careful or you might make a

mistake and say, "Estoy embarazada," to

mean that you are embarrassed, when actually you will be saying that you're

pregnant!

•Is “actual” a cognate?

In Spanish, means “present, current”, and not “actual” as we

use it in English, which in Spanish is instead real,

verdadero.

Let’s think a bit....

• How do you say in English....?

• 1. Delicioso

• 2. Televisión

• 3. Rosa

• 4. Rápido

• 5. Normalmente

How do you say “electricidad” in English?

• Elecrtic

• Electricity

• elected

Practice some false cognates

• Translate the words in brakets

• Espero tener .............(success) en mi examen

• Mi hermana está (pregnant• Quiero (record) un disco de música• Cuidado - ella es super (sensitive)

ResourcesResources

• http://www.answers.com/topic/cognate

• www.wikipedia.com

• Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

• http://www.sdcoe.net/lret2/els/pdf/English-Spanish%20Cognates.pdf

• www.spanish.bz/cognates.htm