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Strange coincidences | ||
Tags: Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Turind Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 6800 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Indonesian | Message 1 of 44 16 April 2006 at 6:23am | IP Logged |
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If I told you that there is a word in language A called "laululintu" and a word in language B called "lalulintas", wouldn't you bet that those two languages are related to each other and that these two words would probably denote one single thing?
Well, "laululintu" is Finnish for "songbird", while "lalulintas" is Indonesian for "traffic"... This is the most extraordinary coincidence of such kind that I have so far come across in my linguistic studies and the most useful Finnish term for "songbird" will thus be engraved in my mind forever. Does anyone here know of any other strange similarities of words from completely different languages, with a completetly different meaning? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Eidolio Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 6861 days ago 159 posts - 164 votes  2 sounds Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, Greek | Message 2 of 44 16 April 2006 at 7:45am | IP Logged |
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Indonesian and Finnish aren't related to each other in a single way. This must be a coincidence, I guess...
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| nox Diglot Groupie Croatia Joined 6861 days ago 62 posts - 62 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English Studies: German | Message 3 of 44 16 April 2006 at 6:03pm | IP Logged |
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nada - in Spanish, nothing; in Croatian, hope.
They are both Indoeuropean laguages, but not 'related' 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sapedro Triglot Senior Member Portugal descredito.blogspot. Joined 7118 days ago 216 posts - 219 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, French Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Greek | Message 4 of 44 17 April 2006 at 5:25am | IP Logged |
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Onda:
then, in Croatian wave, in Portuguese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6890 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 5 of 44 17 April 2006 at 6:19am | IP Logged |
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If two languages share a similarly spelt word which has different meanings in those languages, then I don't really think we can really insinuate that it was intentional.
There are tonnes of sounds in Chinese that have nothing to do with the equivalents in English and have nothing in common in terms of meaning. I wouldn't call it coincidence at all, to be honest. Why couldn't two completely distinct languages have similar sounds or groupings of sounds? It's bound to happen in pretty much any language combination you can think of. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Turind Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 6800 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Indonesian | Message 6 of 44 17 April 2006 at 9:10am | IP Logged |
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I never claimed anything else. Of course, there will be thousands of short words with completely different meanings in different languages; I did not claim, either, that my example had a somewhat deeper meaning or enigma about it. It only strikes me because the words are so long and the sequence of the consonants is identical.
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 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 44 17 April 2006 at 9:46am | IP Logged |
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Yes, for this type of comparison we'd have to set a limit from, say three or four syllables and up, to keep it interesting.
One coincidence I ran across in Mandarin recently was 你看他了 "ni kan ta le" (you saw him) pronounced very similar to Swedish "ni kan tala" (you can speak). A related subject are the "false friends", especially between related languages, such as "gamba" = "leg" in Italian and "prawn" in Spanish, "cama" = "leg" in Catalan and "bed" in Spanish etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Alfonso Octoglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6861 days ago 511 posts - 536 votes Speaks: Biblical Hebrew, Spanish*, French, English, Tzotzil, Italian, Portuguese, Ancient Greek Studies: Nahuatl, Tzeltal, German | Message 8 of 44 24 April 2006 at 10:12am | IP Logged |
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Patan
In Spanish means: sluggard, a rotten or lazy person In Maya Tsotsil means: tax, a public affair 1 person has voted this message useful |
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