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In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language.
Because language change can 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 the comparative method to establish whether lexemes are cognate.
Cognates are distinguished from loanwords, where a word has been borrowed from another language.
Name
The English term cognate derives from Latin cognatus, meaning "blood relative".
Examples
An example of cognates from the same Indo-European root 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), nochi (Extremaduran), nueche (Asturian), noite (Portuguese and Galician), notte (Italian), nit (Catalan), nuet/nit/nueit (Aragonese), nuèch / nuèit (Occitan) and noapte (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.
The Arabic سلام salām, the Hebrew שלום shalom, the Assyrian Neo-Aramaic shlama and the Amharic selam 'peace' are cognates, derived from the Proto-Semitic *šalām- 'peace'.
The Brazilian Portuguese panapanã, (flock of butterflies in flight), the Paraguayan Guarani panambi, the Eastern Bolivian Guarani panapana, the Cocama and Omagua panama, and the Sirionó ana ana are cognates, derived from the Old Tupi panapana, 'butterfly', maintaining their original meaning in these Tupi languages.
Characteristics
Cognates need not have the same meaning, as they may have undergone semantic change as the languages developed independently. For example English starve and Dutch sterven 'to die' or German sterben 'to die' all descend from the same Proto-Germanic verb, *sterbaną 'to die'.
Cognates also do not need to look or sound similar: 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; the sound change *dw > erk in Armenian is regular.
Paradigms of conjugations or declensions, the correspondence of which cannot be generally due to chance, have often been used in cognacy assessment. However, beyond paradigms, morphosyntax is often excluded in the assessment of cognacy between words, mainly because structures are usually seen as more subject to borrowing. Still, very complex, non-trivial morphosyntactic structures can rarely take precedence over phonetic shapes to indicate cognates. For instance, Tangut, the language of the Xixia Empire, and one Horpa language spoken today in Sichuan, Geshiza, both display a verbal alternation indicating tense, obeying the same morphosyntactic collocational restrictions. Even without regular phonetic correspondences between the stems of the two languages, the cognatic structures indicate secondary cognacy for the stems.
False cognates
False cognates are pairs of words that appear to have a common origin, but which in fact do not. For example, Latin habēre and German haben both mean 'to have' and are phonetically similar. However, the words evolved from different Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots: haben, like English have, comes from PIE *kh₂pyé- 'to grasp', and has the Latin cognate capere 'to seize, grasp, capture'. Habēre, on the other hand, is from PIE *gʰabʰ 'to give, to receive', and hence cognate with English give and German geben.
Likewise, English much and Spanish mucho look similar and have a similar meaning, but are not cognates: much is from Proto-Germanic *mikilaz < PIE *meǵ- and mucho is from Latin multum < PIE *mel-. A true cognate of much is the archaic Spanish maño 'big'.
Distinctions
Cognates are distinguished from other kinds of relationships.
- Loanwords are words borrowed from one language into another; for example, English beef is borrowed from Old French boef (meaning "ox"). Although they are part of a single etymological stemma, they are not cognates.
- Doublets are 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 French boef is cognate with English cow, so English cow and beef are 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 word cow is Kuh, which is also cognate, but the French equivalent is vache, which is unrelated.
Related terms
Etymon (ancestor word) and descendant words
An etymon, 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 Welsh ceffyl and Irish capall is the Proto-Celtic *kaballos (all meaning horse).
Descendants are words inherited across a language barrier, coming from a particular etymon in an ancestor language. For example, Russian мо́ре and Polish morze are both descendants of Proto-Slavic *moře (meaning sea).
Root and derivatives
A root is the source of related words within a single language (no language barrier is crossed).
Similar to the distinction between etymon and root, a nuanced distinction can sometimes be made between a descendant and a derivative.
A derivative is 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 example unhappy, happily, and unhappily are all derivatives of the root word happy.
The terms root and derivative are 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.
See also
- Homology (biology)
- Indo-European vocabulary
- False friend
- False etymology
- Folk etymology
- Word family
References
- 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.: "Latin cognātus: co-, co- + gnātus, born, past participle of nāscī, 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".
- Hetzron, Robert (1 January 1976). "Two principles of genetic reconstruction". Lingua. 38 (2): 89–108. doi:10.1016/0024-3841(76)90074-7. ISSN 0024-3841.
- Beaudouin, Mathieu (13 September 2024). "Non-past and past verb stems in Tangut". Language and Linguistics. Online first. doi:10.1075/lali.00177.bea.
- 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 from the original (PDF) on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
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External links
This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Cognate news newspapers books scholar JSTOR December 2023 Learn how and when to remove this message In historical linguistics cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language Diagram showing relationships between etymologically related words Because language change can 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 the comparative method to establish whether lexemes are cognate Cognates are distinguished from loanwords where a word has been borrowed from another language NameThe English term cognate derives from Latin cognatus meaning blood relative ExamplesAn example of cognates from the same Indo European root are night English Nacht German nacht Dutch Frisian nag Afrikaans Naach Colognian natt Swedish Norwegian nat Danish natt Faroese nott Icelandic noc Czech Slovak Polish noch noch Russian noќ noc Macedonian nosh nosht Bulgarian nich nich Ukrainian noch noch noc Belarusian noc Slovene noc Serbo Croatian nakts Latvian naktis Lithuanian nos Welsh Cymraeg ny3 nyx Ancient Greek nyxta nychta Modern Greek nakt Sanskrit nate Albanian nox gen sg noctis Latin nuit French noche Spanish nochi Extremaduran nueche Asturian noite Portuguese and Galician notte Italian nit Catalan nuet nit nueit Aragonese nuech nueit Occitan and noapte Romanian These all mean night and derive from the Proto Indo European nokʷts night The Indo European languages have hundreds of such cognate sets though few of them are as neat as this The Arabic سلام salam the Hebrew שלום shalom the Assyrian Neo Aramaic shlama and the Amharic selam peace are cognates derived from the Proto Semitic salam peace The Brazilian Portuguese panapana flock of butterflies in flight the Paraguayan Guarani panambi the Eastern Bolivian Guarani panapana the Cocama and Omagua panama and the Siriono ana ana are cognates derived from the Old Tupi panapana butterfly maintaining their original meaning in these Tupi languages CharacteristicsCognates need not have the same meaning as they may have undergone semantic change as the languages developed independently For example English starve and Dutch sterven to die or German sterben to die all descend from the same Proto Germanic verb sterbana to die Cognates also do not need to look or sound similar English father French pere and Armenian հայր hayr all descend directly from Proto Indo European ph tḗr An extreme case is Armenian երկու erku and English two which descend from Proto Indo European dwoh the sound change dw gt erk in Armenian is regular Paradigms of conjugations or declensions the correspondence of which cannot be generally due to chance have often been used in cognacy assessment However beyond paradigms morphosyntax is often excluded in the assessment of cognacy between words mainly because structures are usually seen as more subject to borrowing Still very complex non trivial morphosyntactic structures can rarely take precedence over phonetic shapes to indicate cognates For instance Tangut the language of the Xixia Empire and one Horpa language spoken today in Sichuan Geshiza both display a verbal alternation indicating tense obeying the same morphosyntactic collocational restrictions Even without regular phonetic correspondences between the stems of the two languages the cognatic structures indicate secondary cognacy for the stems False cognatesFalse cognates are pairs of words that appear to have a common origin but which in fact do not For example Latin habere and German haben both mean to have and are phonetically similar However the words evolved from different Proto Indo European PIE roots haben like English have comes from PIE kh pye to grasp and has the Latin cognate capere to seize grasp capture Habere on the other hand is from PIE gʰabʰ to give to receive and hence cognate with English give and German geben Likewise English much and Spanish mucho look similar and have a similar meaning but are not cognates much is from Proto Germanic mikilaz lt PIE meǵ and mucho is from Latin multum lt PIE mel A true cognate of much is the archaic Spanish mano big DistinctionsCognates are distinguished from other kinds of relationships Loanwords are words borrowed from one language into another for example English beef is borrowed from Old French boef meaning ox Although they are part of a single etymological stemma they are not cognates Doublets are 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 French boef is cognate with English cow so English cow and beef are 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 word cow is Kuh which is also cognate but the French equivalent is vache which is unrelated Related termsEtymon ancestor word and descendant words An etymon 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 Welsh ceffyl and Irish capall is the Proto Celtic kaballos all meaning horse Descendants are words inherited across a language barrier coming from a particular etymon in an ancestor language For example Russian mo re and Polish morze are both descendants of Proto Slavic more meaning sea Root and derivatives A root is the source of related words within a single language no language barrier is crossed Similar to the distinction between etymon and root a nuanced distinction can sometimes be made between a descendant and a derivative A derivative is 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 example unhappy happily and unhappily are all derivatives of the root word happy The terms root and derivative are 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 See alsoLanguage portalLinguistics portalHomology biology Indo European vocabulary False friend False etymology Folk etymology Word familyReferencesCrystal 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 Latin cognatus co co gnatus born past participle of nasci 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 Hetzron Robert 1 January 1976 Two principles of genetic reconstruction Lingua 38 2 89 108 doi 10 1016 0024 3841 76 90074 7 ISSN 0024 3841 Beaudouin Mathieu 13 September 2024 Non past and past verb stems in Tangut Language and Linguistics Online first doi 10 1075 lali 00177 bea 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 from the original PDF on 20 June 2010 Retrieved 15 June 2014 a href wiki Template Cite web title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint location link External linksLook up cognate in Wiktionary the free dictionary
