Timeline for Are there words which sounds very similar in different languages, and which are proven not to be the result of cultural exchange?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
32 events
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| Dec 19, 2017 at 10:35 | review | Close votes | |||
| Dec 24, 2017 at 3:02 | |||||
| Dec 19, 2017 at 10:03 | history | edited | Sir Cornflakes |
edited tags
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| Apr 23, 2017 at 9:51 | answer | added | pyxster | timeline score: 2 | |
| Apr 22, 2017 at 13:11 | answer | added | Anixx | timeline score: 2 | |
| Apr 22, 2017 at 13:04 | comment | added | Anixx | "computer" comes from Latin, not from English. And most of the words in technology come from Latin or Greek. | |
| Apr 19, 2017 at 10:55 | answer | added | Yellow Sky | timeline score: 6 | |
| Apr 18, 2017 at 22:54 | comment | added | Constantine Geist | @Pablo I expected examples from Spanish, not Japanese. Japanese is a known extreme case. In any case, let's not create a chat out of this comment section. | |
| Apr 18, 2017 at 22:52 | comment | added | Pablo | animation, baby car, dump car, air conditioning, hacker, personal computer, live action, etc. here you can see more, sort by language en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gairaigo_and_wasei-eigo_terms | |
| Apr 18, 2017 at 22:35 | comment | added | Constantine Geist | Can you give examples outside of IT? In any case, the assumption "we know most words related to technology comes from English" is still wrong because it varies from country to country: Japanese as an extreme example of borrowing everything and French/Russian/German etc. where borrowings are limited to IT (when it comes to technology); and it also depends on what kind of time span we're talking about. | |
| Apr 18, 2017 at 22:35 | comment | added | Pablo | @ConstantineGeist I can speak for spanish. We borrow most technological words from English, even if they come from another language. Japan for example, it has a syllabary where most words are adapted from English. They sound almost the same and it's easy to relate them even if you dont speak the language. Japan was forced to open to commerce by an american event which started the revolution that changed its country in 50 years from being in middle age to be a world power | |
| Apr 18, 2017 at 22:30 | comment | added | Constantine Geist | It's to be proven, because you cannot deny the great influence of French and German in Europe. Say, the central and eastern portions of Europe usually borrowed technical terms from German, not English. Words, like Russian lobzik "jigsaw" < German Laubsäge; stameska "chisel" < German Stemmeisen etc Before the XX century, English had little influence on other European languages, which is reflected in the vocabulary of Esperanto (1887) where words of English origin are relatively few, with most words stemming from French or German as the author did not feel English to be important enough. | |
| Apr 18, 2017 at 22:25 | comment | added | Pablo | @ConstantineGeist but it was imported to many other languages from English, not Czech. | |
| Apr 18, 2017 at 22:16 | comment | added | Constantine Geist | @Pablo, the word "robot" comes from Czech, not English (coined by Karel Čapek). The word "television" was coined by Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi in a French-language paper in 1900. Thanks for proving yourself wrong :) | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 12:39 | answer | added | Seb | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 3:53 | answer | added | kabraxis | timeline score: 4 | |
| S Apr 16, 2017 at 22:26 | history | suggested | Ken Graham | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Improved spelling and grammar.
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| Apr 16, 2017 at 17:44 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Apr 16, 2017 at 22:26 | |||||
| Apr 16, 2017 at 15:53 | comment | added | jlawler | It's bound to happen if you relax your criteria for "resemblance", and they are always very vague and never systematic. There are only so many possible roots in a language and only so many things they can mean, so there are bound to be some hits; these can be multiplied by confirmation bias. | |
| Apr 16, 2017 at 15:53 | comment | added | Pablo | @jlawler is the conclusion that it is a statistical coincidence or are there some other reasons? | |
| Apr 16, 2017 at 15:50 | comment | added | jlawler | They're all over the place. It's easy to find half-a-dozen words in any two languages that (a) resemble one another phonologically and (b) resemble one another semantically. Yucatec Maya hól 'hole', for example. Larry Trask has a section on this problem in his Historical Linguistics text; he examines the statistics and shows why it happens. The key term is "resemble" -- there are no systematic sound shifts, and the phonological and semantic "resemblances" are at the whim of the analyst, hence they're all over the place. | |
| Apr 16, 2017 at 15:36 | vote | accept | Pablo | ||
| Apr 16, 2017 at 15:34 | answer | added | WiccanKarnak | timeline score: 4 | |
| Apr 16, 2017 at 15:29 | comment | added | Pablo | @ConstantineGeist not sure what you mean. For example, robot or television are adapted in many languages and they dont come from IT | |
| Apr 16, 2017 at 15:28 | comment | added | Pablo | @user6726 words with similar meaning and pronunciation. If my question isnt very descriptive, feel free to edit it | |
| Apr 16, 2017 at 15:27 | comment | added | Pablo | @GastonÜmlaut that's interesting info, why dont you posts it as an answer? | |
| Apr 16, 2017 at 9:53 | comment | added | Gaston Ümlaut | It is to be expected that for any two languages there will be a number of chance matches (ie words with similar form and meaning). Here's further discussion: zompist.com/chance.htm | |
| Apr 15, 2017 at 18:01 | comment | added | Constantine Geist | "For example, we know most words related to technology comes from English" I'd say, IT-related technology, not technology in general. | |
| Apr 15, 2017 at 17:30 | comment | added | WavesWashSands | The classic example is Mbabaram and English 'dog', which have the same meaning and similar pronunciation. | |
| Apr 15, 2017 at 15:50 | comment | added | user6726 | Here's an example: English "core" and Punjabi kaur "princess", pronounced the same. This is a sheer accident: is that what you're looking for. If not, what are you looking for? | |
| Apr 15, 2017 at 13:15 | review | Close votes | |||
| Apr 24, 2017 at 3:04 | |||||
| Apr 15, 2017 at 13:01 | history | edited | Pablo | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 20 characters in body
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| Apr 15, 2017 at 12:52 | history | asked | Pablo | CC BY-SA 3.0 |