Multilingual True Friends

Rí.na.dTeangacha · Postby **Rí.na.dTeangacha** » 2021-09-16, 15:09

sossego - lull, break, calm

sos - break, rest period, interval

linguoboy · Postby **linguoboy** » 2021-09-16, 19:35

참새 /chamsay/ [t͡ɕʰa̠msʰɛ] sparrow

chim sẻ [t͡ɕim˧˧ sɛ˧˩] sparrow

(Amusingly, both terms include an element which is equivalent to "bird"--but it's the last element (새) in the Korean term and the first (chim) in the Vietnamese word.)

Vlürch · Postby **Vlürch** » 2021-09-17, 12:38

linguoboy wrote: 참새 /chamsay/ [t͡ɕʰa̠msʰɛ] sparrow
chim sẻ [t͡ɕim˧˧ sɛ˧˩] sparrow

(Amusingly, both terms include an element which is equivalent to "bird"--but it's the last element (새) in the Korean term and the first (chim) in the Vietnamese word.)

[insert long rambling Time Cube-level insanity about universal sound symbolism]

:para:

But seriously, that's interesting. Well, statistically with how many different birds there are, it's not weird that similar word blocks* would end up added together, but it's still interesting and cool that they ended up being similar for the same bird. Not claiming onomatopoeism has to have anything to do with it, but when the name even sounds like the sound the bird makes... well, I'll stop rambling.

*"Morphemes" isn't the right word, is it? And calling them "compounds" implies the parts are still productive on their own, right? What even is the right word for this kind of a thing? Although in this case it seems in both languages the components of those words are still used individually, so they really are just compounds? For some reason I'd always thought the Korean -sae was like the Japanese -su in that it's not used on its own... :oops:

linguoboy · Postby **linguoboy** » 2021-09-17, 15:06

Vlürch wrote:*"Morphemes" isn't the right word, is it? And calling them "compounds" implies the parts are still productive on their own, right? What even is the right word for this kind of a thing? Although in this case it seems in both languages the components of those words are still used individually, so they really are just compounds? For some reason I'd always thought the Korean -sae was like the Japanese -su in that it's not used on its own...

Both 참 /cham/ and 새 /say/ are used on their own. The first element has the meaning of "true". It's considered non-productive for forming new compounds but there are lots of similar formations in the lexicon, e.g.:

참외 /cham.oy/ ("true melon") Korean melon
참나무 /cham.namwu/ ("true tree") oak
참나물 /cham.namwul/ ("true herb") short-fruit pimpinella

In Martin's typology, 참 is functioning as what he calls a "pre-noun", a term he uses for morphemes (generally bound) which aren't derived from descriptive verbs but appear prefixed to nouns. Another example would be 수- /swu/ "male" (which has the effect of aspirating the first consonant of the following noun):

수탉 /swuthalk/ "cock, rooster"
수소 /swuso/ "bull"
수코양이 /swuko.yang.i/ "tomcat"

Postby **vijayjohn** » 2021-09-24, 22:22

Askunu, Nangalami: mōċ - fish (probably [moːts]; see https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/s ... y?page=560)
Meyah: mós - fish

Many Bangladeshis say [mas] in Bengali.

Vlürch wrote:"Morphemes" isn't the right word, is it?

I think it's fair to say it is.

cHr0mChIk · Postby **cHr0mChIk** » 2022-01-22, 17:22

I don't know if this counts as true friends, but Romani language has a bunch of words which sound similar to words in Modern Indo-Aryan languages, e.g. Hindurdu, which also share the same or a related meaning, however they have completely different etymologies.

Some of the examples I can remember right now:

čhon moon [from OIA *jyṓtsnā]

چاند čāṅd moon [from OIA *candrá]

चांद čāṅd moon [from OIA *candrá]

ਚੰਦ čaṅd moon [from OIA *candrá]

lačho good [from OIA √lakṣ]

اچّھا aččhā good [from OIA *accha]

अच्छा aččhā good [from OIA *accha]

ਅੱਛਾ aččhā good [even though ਚੰਗਾ and ਸੋਹਣਾ are more common - it comes from OIA *accha]

abe an interjection, exclamation [a "Balkanism", also present in Macedonian, Southern Serbian, Albanian, etc.]

ابے abe an interjection, exclamation

अबे abe an interjection, exclamation

kad, ked when? [Slavic loanword]

ਕਦ kad when? [a word of Indic origin]

I remember stumbling upon more stuff like this however I cannot find my old notes at the moment.

h34 · Postby **h34** » 2022-01-23, 5:14

я [ja]

ja
= yes (but only used to agree with a positive statement)

Postby **vijayjohn** » 2022-01-23, 5:23

cHr0mChIk wrote:I don't know if this counts as true friends

I would say they do!

ununan - acts of eating(?) (ununa-n is glossed as eat.PL.NOM)

ഉണ്ണാൻ [uɳˈɳaːn] - to eat a meal (especially lunch)

cHr0mChIk · Postby **cHr0mChIk** » 2022-01-23, 22:35

(unë) jam - (I) am

زہ) یم) – (zë) jam – (I) am

(ti) je - (you) are

ته) یې) – (ta) je – (you) are

(ai) është - (he) is

ای) استا) – (ai) ëstë – (he) is
(someone told me this is how it's said in Balochi, however I couldn't verify it. My book says it's "آ انت" [ā ent] though, but I still give that person the benefit of the doubt, perhaps it was in a different dialect :hmm:

)

Postby **vijayjohn** » 2022-01-24, 23:09

suruvaippa wrote:
Homine.Sardu wrote: آب âb - water
apă - water
abba - water (only in Logudorese/Nuorese)

áhpi - sea/ocean

اوبه obë - water

Linguaphile · Postby **Linguaphile** » 2022-07-22, 22:13

maks toll, tax, fee

مَكْس (maks) toll, tax, customs

The word is quite an old one in both languages. The Estonian word comes from Proto-Finno-Permic *maksa "pay, give" and has cognates in other Finnic and Saamic languages and Erzya; the Arabic word comes from from Akkadian miksu "tax" and has cognates in Aramaic.
There is a theory that the word could have entered Proto-Finno-Permic via Proto-Iranian around 4000 years ago. (I can't find what the Proto-Iranian word would have been, though.)
More recently (400+ years ago) it has also been borrowed from Finnic into Latvian as

maksa toll, fee, payment.

Lewis23 · Postby **Lewis23** » 2022-10-20, 11:24

དེ་ནས /tʰe nɛ/ - and then

でね dene - and then
The inner structures are quite different, but when used at the beginning of the sentence the meanings are similar.
དེ - that, ནས - ablative particle
で - continuative form, ね - interjectory particle