Cognate

Inhistorical linguistics,cognatesorlexical cognatesare sets ofwordsthat have been inherited in direct descent from anetymologicalancestor in acommon parent language.^[1]
Each set of cognate word constitute aword familyand the vast majority of english word families is oflatin discent(formally more than 80%), being latin the language that in theclassical erafully absorbed the greek language which had been the language of the first european scientific development
. Becauselanguage changecan have radical effects on both the sound and the meaning of a word, cognates may not be obvious, and it often takes rigorous study of historical sources and the application of thecomparative methodto establish whetherlexemesare cognate. Cognates are distinguished fromloanwords,where a word has been borrowed from another language.

Name[edit]

The English termcognatederives fromLatincognatus,meaning "blood relative".^[2]

Characteristics[edit]

An example of cognates from the sameIndo-Europeanroot are:night(English),Nacht(German),nacht(Dutch,Frisian),nag(Afrikaans),Naach(Colognian),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(Serbo-Croatian),nakts(Latvian),naktis(Lithuanian),nos(Welsh/Cymraeg), νύξ,nyx(Ancient Greek),νύχτα/nychta(Modern Greek),nakt-(Sanskrit),natë(Albanian),nox,gen. sg.noctis(Latin),nuit(French),noche(Spanish),nueche(Asturian),noite(PortugueseandGalician),notte(Italian),nit(Catalan),nuet/nit/nueit(Aragonese),nuèch/nuèit(Occitan) andnoapte(Romanian). These all mean 'night' and derive from the Proto-Indo-European*nókʷts'night'. The Indo-European languages have hundreds of such cognate sets, though few of them are as neat as this.

TheArabicسلامsalām,theHebrewשלום‎shalom,theAssyrian Neo-Aramaicshlamaand theAmharicselam'peace' are cognates, derived from theProto-Semitic *šalām-'peace'.

Cognates need not have the same meaning, as they may have undergonesemantic changeas the languages developed independently. For exampleEnglishstarveandDutchsterven'to die' orGermansterben'to die' all descend from the sameProto-Germanicverb,*sterbaną'to die'.

Cognates also do not need to look or sound similar: Englishfather,Frenchpère,andArmenian հայր(hayr) all descend directly fromProto-Indo-European*ph₂tḗr.An extreme case is Armenianերկու(erku) and Englishtwo,which descend fromProto-Indo-European*dwóh₁;the sound change*dw>erkin Armenian is regular.

False cognates[edit]

False cognates are pairs of words that appear to have a common origin, but which in fact do not. For example, Latinhabēreand Germanhabenboth mean 'to have' and are phonetically similar. However, the words evolved from differentProto-Indo-European(PIE) roots:haben,like Englishhave,comes from PIE*kh₂pyé-'to grasp', and has the Latin cognatecapere'to seize, grasp, capture'.Habēre,on the other hand, is from PIE*gʰabʰ'to give, to receive', and hence cognate with Englishgiveand Germangeben.^[3]

Likewise, Englishmuchand Spanishmucholook similar and have a similar meaning, but are not cognates:muchis from Proto-Germanic*mikilaz< PIE*meǵ-andmuchois from Latinmultum< PIE*mel-.A true cognate ofmuchis the archaic Spanishmaño'big'.^[4]

Distinctions[edit]

Cognates are distinguished from other kinds of relationships.

Loanwordsare words borrowed from one language into another; for example, Englishbeefis borrowed from Old Frenchboef(meaning "ox" ). Although they are part of a single etymological stemma, they are not cognates.
Doubletsare pairs of words in the same language which are derived from a single etymon, which may have similar but distinct meanings and uses. Often, one is a loanword and the other is the native form, or they have developed in different dialects and then found themselves together in a modern standard language. For example, Old Frenchboefis cognate with Englishcow,so Englishcowandbeefare doublets.
Translations,or semantic equivalents, are words in two different languages that have similar or practically identical meanings. They may be cognate, but usually they are not. For example, the German equivalent of the English wordcowisKuh,which is also cognate, but the French equivalent isvache,which is unrelated.

Related terms[edit]

Etymon (ancestor word) and descendant words[edit]

Anetymon,or ancestor word, is the ultimate source word from which one or more cognates derive. In other words, it is the source of related words in different languages. For example, the etymon of both Welshceffyland Irishcapallis the Proto-Celtic *kaballos(all meaninghorse).

Descendantsare words inherited across a language barrier, coming from a particular etymon in an ancestor language. For example, Russianмо́реand Polishmorzeare both descendants of Proto-Slavic *moře(meaningsea).

Root and derivatives[edit]

Arootis the source of related words within a single language (no language barrier is crossed).

Similar to the distinction betweenetymonandroot,a nuanced distinction can sometimes be made between adescendantand aderivative.

Aderivativeis one of the words which have their source in a root word, and were at some time created from the root word using morphological constructs such as suffixes, prefixes, and slight changes to the vowels or to the consonants of the root word. For exampleunhappy,happily,andunhappilyare all derivatives of the root wordhappy.

The termsrootandderivativeare used in the analysis of morphological derivation within a language in studies that are not concerned with historical linguistics and that do not cross the language barrier.

References[edit]

^Crystal, David,ed. (2011)."cognate".A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics(6th ed.).Blackwell Publishing.pp. 104, 418.ISBN 978-1-4443-5675-5.OCLC 899159900.
^"cognate",The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,4th ed.: "Latincognātus:co-,co- +gnātus,born, past participle ofnāscī,to be born. "Other definitions of the English word include" [r]elated by blood; having a common ancestor "and" [r]elated or analogous in nature, character, or function ".
^Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben
^Ringe, Don."A quick introduction to language change"(PDF).Univ. of Pennsylvania: Linguistics 001 (Fall 2011).¶ 29. pp. 11–12. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 20 June 2010.Retrieved15 June2014.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: location (link)

External links[edit]

[1] Crystal, David,ed. (2011)."cognate".A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics(6th ed.).Blackwell Publishing.pp. 104, 418.ISBN 978-1-4443-5675-5.OCLC 899159900.

[2] "cognate",The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,4th ed.: "Latincognātus:co-,co- +gnātus,born, past participle ofnāscī,to be born. "Other definitions of the English word include" [r]elated by blood; having a common ancestor "and" [r]elated or analogous in nature, character, or function ".

[3] Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben

[4] Ringe, Don."A quick introduction to language change"(PDF).Univ. of Pennsylvania: Linguistics 001 (Fall 2011).¶ 29. pp. 11–12. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 20 June 2010.Retrieved15 June2014.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: location (link)

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