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Cognates in linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
 are words that have a common etymological
Etymology

Etymology is the study of the roots and history of words; and how their form and meaning have changed over time.In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time....
 origin.

An example of cognates within the same language would be English shirt vs. skirt, the former from Old English scyrte, the latter loaned from Old Norse
List of English words of Old Norse origin

Words of Old Norse origin that have entered the English language, primarily from the colonisation of eastern and northern England between 800-1000 CE....
 skyrta, both from the same Common Germanic *skurtjon-. Words with this type of relationship within a single language are called doublets. Further cognates of the same word in other Germanic languages
Germanic languages

The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European languages language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Pre-Roman Iron Age....
 would include German Schürze and Dutch schort "apron".

The word cognate derives from Latin cognatus "blood relative".






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Cognates in linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
 are words that have a common etymological
Etymology

Etymology is the study of the roots and history of words; and how their form and meaning have changed over time.In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time....
 origin.

An example of cognates within the same language would be English shirt vs. skirt, the former from Old English scyrte, the latter loaned from Old Norse
List of English words of Old Norse origin

Words of Old Norse origin that have entered the English language, primarily from the colonisation of eastern and northern England between 800-1000 CE....
 skyrta, both from the same Common Germanic *skurtjon-. Words with this type of relationship within a single language are called doublets. Further cognates of the same word in other Germanic languages
Germanic languages

The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European languages language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Pre-Roman Iron Age....
 would include German Schürze and Dutch schort "apron".

The word cognate derives from Latin cognatus "blood relative".

Characteristics of cognate words

Cognates need not have the same meaning: dish (English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
) and Tisch ("table", German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
), or starve (English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
) and sterben ("die", German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
), or head (English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
) and chef ("chief, head", French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
), serve as examples as to how cognate terms may diverge in meaning as languages develop separately, eventually becoming false friends.

Cognates across languages

Examples of cognates in Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a Language family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau , Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ....
 are the words night (English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
), nuit (French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
), Nacht (German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
), nacht (Dutch
Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...
), nicht (Scots
Scots language

Scots or Lowland Scots refers to the Germanic Variety derived from Middle English spoken in parts of Lowland Scotland, Northern Ireland and the border areas of the Republic of Ireland....
), natt (Swedish
Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
, Norwegian
Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....
), nat (Danish
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
), noc (Czech
Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czech people worldwide....
, Polish
Polish language

Polish , an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic languages. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography....
), ????, noch (Russian
Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
), ???, nosht (Bulgarian
Bulgarian language

Bulgarian is an Indo-European languages, a member of the Slavic languages linguistic group.Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic innovations that set it apart from all other Slavic languages except Macedonian language, such as the elimination of grammatical case, the development of a suffixed definite article , the lack of a verb infin...
), ???, nich (Ukrainian
Ukrainian language

Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic languages of the Slavic languages. It is the official language of Ukraine. In some areas of Russia there are dialects, Balachka or Surzhyk, which are the Ukrainianized versions of the Russian language....
), ???, noch/noc (Belarusian
Belarusian language

The Belarusian language, or Belorussian is the language of the Belarusians and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland....
), noc (Croatian
Croatian language

Croatian language is a South Slavic languages which is used primarily in Croatia, by Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in neighbouring countries where Croats are Indigenous peoples, in Italian region of Molise, and parts of the Croats diaspora....
, Serbian
Serbian language

name=Serbian|nativename=|pronunciation=['sr?pski?]|familycolor=Indo-European|map=|states=See below under "Official status", besides that in Croatia and as an immigrant's language spread over Central Europe and Western Europe, as well as Northern America...
), ???, nyx (Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
), nox (Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
), nakt- (Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
), natë (Albanian
Albanian language

Albanian is an Indo-European languages spoken by nearly 6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including the west of the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, and southern Serbia....
), noche (Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
), nos (Welsh
Welsh language

Welsh ]], is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh Marches and in the Welsh settlement in Argentina in the Chubut Valley in Argentina Patagonia....
), noite (Portuguese
Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
 and Galician
Galician language

Galician is a language of the Iberian Romance languages branch, spoken in Galicia , an Autonomous communities of Spain located in northwestern Spain, as well as in small bordering zones in the neighbouring autonomous communities of Asturias and Castile and Le?n and in Northern Portugal....
), notte (Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
), nit (Catalan
Catalan language

Catalan is a Romance languages, the national language and official language of Andorra, and a official language in the Autonomous Communities of Spain of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community and in the city of Alghero in the Italy List of islands in the Mediterranean of Sardinia....
), noapte (Romanian
Romanian language

Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba rom?na, ) is a Romance languages spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova....
), nótt (Icelandic
Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
), and naktis (Lithuanian
Lithuanian language

Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognised as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad....
), all meaning "night" and derived from the Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
 (PIE
Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
) , "night".

Another Indo-European example is star (English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
), str- (Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
), astre or étoile (French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
), ast?? (aster) (Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
), stella (Latin, Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
), stea (Romanian
Romanian language

Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba rom?na, ) is a Romance languages spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova....
 and Venetian
Venetian language

Venetian or Venetan is a Romance languages spoken by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy. The language is called v?neto in Venetian, veneto in Italian; the variant spoken in Venice is called venexi?n/venesi?n or veneziano, respectively....
), stairno (Gothic
Gothic language

Gothic is an extinct language Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from Codex Argenteus, a 6th century copy of a 4th century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic languages with a sizable corpus....
), astl (Armenian
Armenian language

The 'Armenian language' is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. It is the official language of the Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh....
), Stern (German), ster (Dutch and Afrikaans
Afrikaans

Afrikaans is an Indo-European language, derived from Dutch language and thus classified as Low Franconian languages West Germanic languages. It is mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia, with smaller numbers of speakers living in Botswana, Angola, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Australia, New Zealand, United States of America, Taiwa...
), starn (Scots), stjerne (Norwegian
Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....
 and Danish), stjarna (Icelandic
Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
), stjärna (Swedish
Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
), setare (Persian
Persian language

name=Persian|nativename=|pronunciation=[f??r'si]|image=|caption=Farsi in Perso-Arabic script |states= Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Bahrain....
), stoorei (Pashto
Pashto language

Pashto , also known as Afghani, is an Indo-European language spoken primarily in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. Pashto belongs to the East Iranian languages branch of the Indo-Iranian languages language family....
), seren (Welsh
Welsh language

Welsh ]], is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh Marches and in the Welsh settlement in Argentina in the Chubut Valley in Argentina Patagonia....
), steren (Cornish
Cornish language

The Cornish language is one of the Brythonic group of Celtic languages. The language continued to function as a community language in parts of Cornwall until the late 18th century, and there have been attempts to revive the language since the early 20th century....
), estel (Catalan
Catalan language

Catalan is a Romance languages, the national language and official language of Andorra, and a official language in the Autonomous Communities of Spain of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community and in the city of Alghero in the Italy List of islands in the Mediterranean of Sardinia....
), estrella (Spanish), estrela (Portuguese
Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
 and Galician
Galician language

Galician is a language of the Iberian Romance languages branch, spoken in Galicia , an Autonomous communities of Spain located in northwestern Spain, as well as in small bordering zones in the neighbouring autonomous communities of Asturias and Castile and Le?n and in Northern Portugal....
) and estêre (Kurdish
Kurdish language

The Kurdish language is a term used for the language spoken by Kurdish people. It is mainly concentrated in the parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey....
), from the PIE , "star".

The Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
 shalom, the Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
 salaam and the Amharic
Amharic language

Amharic is a Semitic languages spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara people. It is the second most spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic language, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia....
 selam ("peace") are also cognates, derived from Proto-Semitic *šalam-.

The phrase for new year in Mon-Khmer languages are noticeable cognates, Khmer "chnam thmei", Mon "snam thme" and Vietnamese "nam m?i".

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. On the other hand, French lait and Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
 leche (both meaning "milk") are less obviously cognates of Ancient Greek
Ancient greek language

#REDIRECT Ancient Greek...
  (genitive singular of , "milk") , a relationship more evidently seen through the intermediate Latin lac "milk", as well as the English word lactic and other terms borrowed from Latin.

Cognates within the same language

Cognates can exist within the same language. For example, English ward and guard (*wer-, "to perceive, watch out for") are cognates, as are shirt and skirt (*sker-, "to cut"). In some cases, such as "shirt" and "skirt", one of the cognate pairs has an ultimate source in another language related to English, while the other one is native, as happened with many loanwords from Old Norse (which was mutually intelligible with Old English
Old English language

Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century....
) borrowed when the Viking
Viking

A Viking is one of the Norsemen explorers, warriors, merchants, and Piracy who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century....
s conquered part of England. Sometimes, both cognates come from other languages, often the same one but at different times. For example, the word chief comes from the Middle French chef, and its modern pronunciation preserves the Middle French consonant sound. The word chef was borrowed from the same source centuries later, by which time the consonant had changed to a "sh"-sound in French. Such words are said to be etymological twins.

False cognates

False cognate
False cognate

False cognates are pairs of words in the same or different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different root . That is, they appear to be or are sometimes considered cognates when in fact they are not....
s are words that are commonly thought to be related (have a common origin) whereas linguistic examination reveals they are unrelated. Thus, for example, on the basis of superficial similarities one might suppose that the Latin verb habere and German haben, both meaning 'to have', were cognates. However, an understanding of the way words in the two languages evolve from Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
 (PIE) roots shows that they cannot be cognate (see for example Grimm's law
Grimm's law

Grimm's law named for Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing the inherited Proto-Indo-European language stops as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC....
). German haben (like English have) in fact comes from PIE *kap, 'to grasp', and its real cognate in Latin is capere, 'to seize, grasp, capture'. Latin habere, on the other hand, is from PIE *g?ab?, 'to give, to receive', and hence cognate with English give and German geben.

The similarity of words between languages is not enough to demonstrate that the words are related to each other, in much the same way that facial resemblance does not imply a close genetic relationship between people. Over the course of hundreds and thousands of years, words may change their sound completely. Thus, for example, English five and Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
 pança are cognates, while English over and Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
 'avar are not, and neither are English dog and Mbabaram
Mbabaram language

Mbabaram is an language death Australian Aboriginal languages of north Queensland. It was the traditional language of the Mbabaram tribe.The last native speaker of Mbabaram was Albert Bennett who died in 1972....
 dog.

Contrast this with false friend
False friend

False friends are pairs of words in two languages or dialects that look and/or sound similar, but differ in meaning.False cognates, by contrast, are similar words in different languages that appear to have a common historical linguistic origin but actually do not....
s, which frequently are cognate.

See also

  • Cognate object
    Cognate object

    In linguistics, a cognate object is a verb's object that is cognate with the verb. More specifically, the verb is one that is ordinarily intransitive , and the cognate object is simply the verb's noun form....
  • Historical-comparative linguistics
    Historical-Comparative Linguistics

    Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages;...
  • Paronym
    Paronym

    A paronym or paronyme in linguistics may refer to two different things:# A word that is related to another word and derives from the same Root , e.g....
  • False friend
    False friend

    False friends are pairs of words in two languages or dialects that look and/or sound similar, but differ in meaning.False cognates, by contrast, are similar words in different languages that appear to have a common historical linguistic origin but actually do not....