English historical and cultural contexts

Dr. Ana Laura Rodríguez Redondo

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Lexical similarities between languages (Millward, 1990:64)

Almost any two languages in the world will have some words similar in
both meaning and sound. Among the different reasons for such
similarities are
(a) Onomatopoeia: the words echo the actual sound (English
miaow-miaow; Chinese miao)
(b) Coincidence (English me; Swahili mimi)
(c) Borrowing, either from one language to the other or both
from a third language (English mirror; French miroir)
(d) Common origin: both languages descend from a common
parent language (English mild; German mild)
Indicate the most likely explanation for the similar pairs listed below
by placing the appropriate letter (a), (b), (c), or (d) in the blank to
the right.
Use your intuition, knowledge of history and geography, and any
dictionaries you like, to help you decide.
1. English discretion; Czech diskrétnost :C
2. Russian mehh; Ibo nmáa 'noise made by a goat' : A
3. Spanish domar; Italian domare 'to tame' : D
4. English seven; Hebrew seva : B
5. English crab; Icelandic krabbi : D
6. Hungarian garázs; Turkish garaj 'garage' : C
7. English chuckle; Swahili chekelea : A
8. Japanese sansui; Chinese shanshui 'landscape' : C
9. English bang; Tagalog bangga : C
10. Hindi do; Persian do 'two' : D