Cognate

In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. Cognates are often inherited from a shared parent language, but they may also involve borrowings from some other language. For example, the English words dish and desk and the German word Tisch ('table') are cognates because they all come from Latin discus, which relates to their flat surfaces. Cognates may have evolved similar, different or even opposite meanings, but in most cases there are some similar sounds or letters in the words, in some cases appearing to be dissimilar. Some words sound similar, but don't come from the same root; these are called false cognates, while some are truly cognate but differ in meaning; these are called false friends. The word cognate derives from the Latin noun cognatus, which means 'blood relative'. 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'). 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. An extreme case is Armenian երկու (erku) and English two, which descend from Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ (note that the sound change *dw > erk in Armenian is regular). 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), astgh (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 Arabic سلام salām, the Hebrew .mw-parser-output .script-hebrew,.mw-parser-output .script-Hebr{font-size:1.15em;font-family:'Ezra SIL','Ezra SIL SR','Keter Aram Tsova','Taamey Ashkenaz','Taamey David CLM','Taamey Frank CLM','Frank Ruehl CLM','Keter YG','Shofar','David CLM','Hadasim CLM','Simple CLM','Nachlieli','SBL BibLit','SBL Hebrew',Cardo,Alef,'Noto Serif Hebrew','Noto Sans Hebrew','David Libre',David,'Times New Roman',Gisha,Arial,FreeSerif,FreeSans}שלום shalom, 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, Croatian, Slovenian mleko, 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'.