Cognate

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For other uses, see Cognate (disambiguation).

Diagram showing relationships between etymologically-related words

In linguistics, cognates, also called lexical cognates, are words that have a

common etymological origin.[1] 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, disk 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, and
although there are usually some similar sounds or letters in the words, they may appear
to be dissimilar. Some words sound similar, but do not 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".[2]

Contents

 1Characteristics
 2Across languages
 3Within the same language
 4False cognates
 5See also
 6References
 7Further reading
 8External links

Characteristics[edit]
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).

Across languages[edit]
Examples of cognates in Indo-European languages are the
words night (English), nicht (Scots), Nacht (German), nacht (Dutch, Frisian), nag (Afrika
ans), Naach (Colognian), natt (Swedish, Norwegian), nat (Danish), nátt (Faroese), nótt (
Icelandic), noc (Czech, Slovak, Polish), ночь, noch (Russian), ноќ, noć (Macedonian),
нощ, nosht (Bulgarian), nishi (Bengali), ніч, nich (Ukrainian), ноч, noch/noč (Belarusian)
, noč (Slovene), noć (Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian), nakts (Latvian), naktis (Lithuanian),
νύξ, nyx (Ancient Greek, νύχτα / nychta in Modern
Greek), nakt- (Sanskrit), natë (Albanian), nos (Welsh, Cornish), noz (Breton), nox/nocte 
(Latin), nuit (French), noche (Spanish), nueche (Asturian), noite (Portuguese and Galici
an), notte (Italian), nit (Catalan), nuet/nit/nueit (Aragonese), nuèch / nuèit (Occitan)
and noapte (Romanian), all meaning "night" and being derived from the Proto-Indo-
European *nókʷts "night".
Another Indo-European example
is star (English), starn (Scots), Stern (German), ster (Dutch
and Afrikaans), stjer (Frisian) Schtähn (Colognian), stjärna (Swedish), stjerne (Norwegia
n and Danish), stjarna (Icelandic), stjørna (Faroese), stairno (Gothic), str- (Sanskrit), tar
a (Hindustani and Bengali), tera (Sylheti), tora (Assamese), setāre (Persian), stoorei (Pa
shto), estêre or stêrk (Kurdish), astgh (Armenian), ἀστήρ
(astēr) (Greek or ἀστέρι/ἄστρο, asteri/astro in Modern
Greek), astrum / stellă (Latin), astre / étoile (French), astro / stella (Italian), stea (Roman
ian and Venetian), estel (Catalan), astru / isteddu (Sardinian), estela (Occitan), estrella 
and astro (Spanish), estrella (Asturian and Leonese), estrela and astro (Portuguese and 
Galician), seren (Welsh), steren (Cornish) and sterenn (Breton), from the Proto-Indo-
European *h₂stḗr "star".
The Arabic ‫سالم‬ salām, the Hebrew ‫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 and Afrikaans melk, Russian молоко
(moloko), Serbian and Slovenian mleko, and Montenegrin, Bosnian, Croatian, mlijeko.
[3]
 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.
Some cognates are semantic opposites. For instance, while the Hebrew
word ‫חוצפה‬ chutzpah means "impudence", its Classical
Arabic cognate ‫حصافة‬ ḥaṣāfah means "sound judgment."[4] Another example is
English empathy "understanding of thoughts" and Greek εμπάθεια empátheia "malice".

Within the same language[edit]

Cognates within a single language, or doublets, may have meanings that are slightly or
even totally different. For example, English ward and guard (<PIE *wer-, "to perceive,
watch out for") are cognates, as are shirt (garment on top) and skirt (garment on
bottom) (<PIE *sker-, "to cut"). In some cases, including this one, one cognate ("skirt")
has an ultimate source in another language related to English, [5] but the other one
("shirt") is native.[6] That happened with many loanwords, such as skirt in this example,
which was borrowed from Old Norse during the Danelaw.
Sometimes both doublets come from other languages, often the same one but at
different times. For example, the word chief (meaning the leader of any group) comes
from the Middle French chef ("head"), and its modern pronunciation preserves the
Middle French consonant sound; the word chef (the leader of the cooks) was borrowed
from the same source centuries later, but by then, the consonant had changed to a "sh"
sound in French. Such word sets can also be called etymological twins, and they may
come in groups of higher numbers, as with, for example, the
words wain (native), waggon/wagon (Dutch), and vehicle (Latin) in English.
A word may also enter another language, develop a new form or meaning there, and be
re-borrowed into the original language; that is called reborrowing. For example, the
Greek word κίνημα (kínima, "movement") became French cinéma (compare American
English movie) and then later returned to Greece as σινεμά (sinemá, "the art of film",
"movie theater"). In Greek, κίνημα (kínima, "movement") and σινεμά (sinemá,
"filmmaking, cinema") are now doublets.[7]
A less obvious English-language doublet pair is grammar and glamour.