False cognates are pairs of words that seem related, but aren’t. Here are some of these amazing linguistic coincidences.

What are False Congates?

If you read my last post, Dizzying Doublets, you’ll see that sometimes words that seem totally different, like “nation” and “king”, or “gonads” and “genius”, can be distantly related. Words like this, which share a common root word, are called “cognates”.

Cognates are everywhere, connecting words in many different languages. It’s no coincidence that Portuguese chá and Vietnamese trà are pronounced almost the same, because they are both borrowed from Chinese chá. The similarities between the English word “two”, the Norwegian “to”, Farsi “du” and Lithuanian “du” are explained by their common ancestry: they’re all from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word *dwóh₁.

My last post was about words that seem unrelated but aren’t: cognates.

This post is about the exact opposite: words that seem related, but aren’t: false cognates.

For example, who would have guessed that the English words “island” and “isle” aren’t related? But they aren’t! They come from totally different origins, and the similarity in the way they sound is purely coincidental. The world of words is full of strange coincidences like this.

Here are 20 different pairs of words that sound similar, and have the same (or very similar) meanings, but are totally unrelated. I’ve also shown the origins of each word, to clearly show their separate origins.

Why are there so many coincidences like this? Are these languages secretly related?

All these unlikely connections seem like enough to make you put on your tinfoil hat, and make up wild theories about Portuguese being related to Japanese… but of course they really are coincidences.

Think about it this way: there are thought to be around 6,500 languages spoken on Earth today, and many thousands more extinct and dead languages. Most of these languages likely have tens or even hundreds of thousands of words. The largest English dictionaries, for example, have about 470,000 words. This gives us a very rough estimate for the total number of words in the world on the order of 10-100 billion! With the vast number of words in the world, of course many of these words sound similar to each other. And of those, some also happen to mean the same thing.

And so these coincidences pop up over and over, in different languages across the world. The 20 false congates I’ve shown here are just a drop in the ocean, and I could easily make another 10 images like this. Hey, if this post takes off, maybe I will.

More about each of these pairs of words:

English “Island” and English “Isle”

This is one of my favourite coincidences, because they look so clearly related. But they aren’t!

Island ← Middle English iland ← Old English īġland ← Proto-Germanic *awjō+landą ← PIE *h₂ekʷeh₂ (water) +*lendʰ- (land)

Isle ← Middle English ile ← Old French ile ← Latin insula ← further etymology unknown, possibly Latin in salō (in the sea)

In the 16th century, an “s” was added to “isle” to reflect the Latin origin, and also to “island”, which was (incorrectly) thought to come from the same place. The result is two words that sound the same, have the same meaning, and have the same weird spelling… but are unrelated!

English “Much” and Spanish “Mucho”

Two words that sound so similar that they have to be related right? Nope.

Much ← Middle English muche ← Old English myċel ← Proto-Germanic *mikilaz ← PIE *meǵh₂- (big)

Mucho (much, many) ← Latin multus ← PIE *ml̥tos (crumbled)

English “Day” and Spanish “Dia”

Another pair everybody assumes are related, the way so many Spanish and English words are, but no:

Day ← Old English dæġ ← Proto-Germanic *dagaz ← PIE *dʰegʷʰ- (to burn)

Dia ← Latin diēs ← PIE *dyew- (to shine)

English “Have” and Catalan “Haver”

Many Germanic words for “have” look very similar to many Romance words for “have”, but they aren’t actually cognates.

English have, German haben, Dutch hebben all from ← Proto-Germanic *habjaną ← PIE *keh₂p- (to seize)

Catalan haver, Portuguese haver, Spanish haber, all from ← Latin habere ← PIE *gʰeh₁bʰ- (to take)

English “Name” and Japanese “Namae”

Lots of languages have a similar word for name. In Farsi it’s “nâm“, and in Sanskrit it’s nā́man, both of which are distantly related to the English “name”, as they all come from the Proto-Indo-European word *h₁nómn̥. The Sanskrit word was also borrowed into some no-Indo-European languages, giving us the Malay/Indonesian word “nama“. In Japanese, however, the word is similar by total coincidence:

English name ← Proto-Germanic *namô ← PIE *h₁nómn̥

Japanese namae 名前 ← Japanese na 名 (name) + Japanese mae 前 (the front)

English “Emoticon” and Japanese “emoji”

Japanese has borrowed a lot of English words, and adapted them. No prizes for guessing where “aisu kurīmu” comes from, for example. Some of them have even been returned to English as new words: Animation was borrowed, and given back as “anime”. The first part of “orchestra” was borrowed, and the word “kara” (empty) was added to form “karaoke”, a word that was payed back with interest.

You might assume “emoji” was another example, but nope! 😛

English emoticon ← English emotion + icon

Japanese emoji 絵文字 ← Japanese “e” 絵 (picture) + 文字 moji (character)

Portuguese “obrigado” and Japanese “arigatō”

The words for “thank you” in Portuguese and Japanese are weirdly similar. The Japanese word is first recorded in the 1400s, and the Portuguese didn’t reach Japan until 1543, so we can be sure it’s a coincidence.

obrigado ← Latin obligātus perfect passive participle of obligō (bind in obligation)

Japanese arigatō ありがとう ← Old Japanese arigatashi ありがたし (thankful)

English “Cut” and Vietnamese “Cắt”

As an English person living in Hanoi, this is one I’ve noticed myself. It’s a little confusing to hear children who don’t speak any English holding scissors and seemingly saying the word “cut” in English. Turns out this and the Cambodian word កាត់ “kat” are cousins, but are unrelated to English.

Other similar, but also (as far as I can tell) unrelated words include Tagalog “kitil” (cut off), Telugu కట్ “kaṭ” (cut), Italian “coltello” (knife), Arabic قَــطْـع “qaṭaʿa” (cut), Middle Chinese 割 “kat” (cut), Japanese 刀 “katana” (sword). It is likely that these false cognates are not true coincidences: I suspect they come from the associations between the idea of cutting, and sharp, stopping sounds like “k” and “t”.

Cut ← possibly from Old Norse kutta (cut) ← Proto-Germanic kutjaną (cut)

Cắt ← Proto-Vietic *kac ← Proto-Mon-Khmer *kac/*kat

Italian “Ciao” and Vietnamese “Chào”

The first word I learned when I moved to Vietnam, and I basically already knew it! Both the Italian word and the Vietnamese have identical meanings, as they can both be used to mean “hello” or “goodbye”, and their pronunciations are very similar. Chào is often made more formal as “xin chào”.

Ciao ← Venecian sciao vostro (“I am your slave”) ← Medieval Latin sclavus (“slave”) ← Late Latin Slavus (Slav, as Slavic people were often forced into slavery)

Chào ← Chinese cháo 朝 – used to wish good health to your elders, which had an earlier meaning of “morning ceremony”, and ultimately comes from a word meaning “morning”.

Scottish Gaelic “Bò” and Vietnamese “Bò”

These two have identical meanings, are written identically, and sound very similar. Gaelic bò is distantly related to the English cow, and to the Latin bōs, which is where we get the word bovine in English.

S. Gaelic bò (cow)← Old Irish bó ← Proto-Celtic *bāus ← Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws (cow)

Vietnamese bò (cow , cattle, bovine)← Proto-Vietic *bɔː(bovine, buffalo)

Latin “Deus” and Greek “Theós”

While Latin and Greek share a lot of common ground in terms of language and their ancient religions, their words for god are unrelated.

Latin deus (god) ← Old Latin deiuos ← Proto-Italic *deiwos ← PIE *deywós (god) ←PIE *dyew- (sky, heaven)

Theós θεός (god) ← Ancient Greek θεός (god) ← Proto-Hellenic *tʰehós (god) ← PIE dʰéh₁s (God) PIE ← *dʰeh₁- (to do)

English “Sheriff” and Arabic “Sharif”

These words are similar in pronunciation, and kinda related in meaning:

In English, a sheriff is a law enforcer or magistrate in a county (shire).

In Arabic, sharif (شريف‎ šarīf) means “noble” or “honoured”, and is also a title given to some rulers and magistrates of noble ancestry.

Sheriff ← Middle English shirreve ←Old English scīrġerēfa ←Old English sċīr +‎ ġerēfa (shire+reeve, where a “shire” is a county, and a “reeve” is an chief magistrate)

sharif شَرِيف ← root word ش ر ف‎ (š-r-f) (related to honour and nobility)

Dutch “Aarde” and Arabic “‘Ard”

These words are very similar in pronunciation and basically identical in meaning. Both words can mean both “Earth” (the planet), and earth as in the ground or land.

Aarde ← Old Dutch ertha ← Proto-Germanic *erþō

‘Ard أرض ← Proto-Semitic *ʾarṣ́- ← Proto-Afro-Asiatic *ʔariĉ̣-

English “kayak” and Turkish “kayık”

The word kayak was borrowed into English from Inuktitut, a Canadian Inuit language, where it meant “a man’s boat”. This is very similar to the Turkish word for boat, kayık, which is borrowed into English (via Greek) as Caïque, a specific type of Turkish boat.

Kayak ← Inuktitut qajaq ᖃᔭᖅ (a man’s boat) ← Proto-Eskimo *qyaq.

Kayık (boat) ← Ottoman Turkish kayık قای (boat)

English “Many” and Korean “Mani”

Korean and English happen to have weirdly similar words for “many”.

Many ← Old English maniġ ← Proto-Germanic *managaz ← PIE *monogʰos (many)

Mani (adverb meaing many, much, a lot) ← man- 많 (to be many) + i 이 (adverbial suffix)

English “bad” and Farsi “bad”

English and Farsi (Persian) are distantly related Indo-European languages, so there are plenty of words that are similar between them. However, there are also quite a few uncanny coincidences. The word for “bad” is pronounced identically in both languages.

Bad ← origin uncertain, possibly Old English bæddel (hermaphrodite) ← Proto-Germanic *bad- (to defile)

Bad بد ← Middle Persian wad

English “better” and Farsi “behtar”

Another pair of words that are very similar in English and Farsi.

Better ← Old English betera ← Proto-Germanic *batizô ← Proto-Indo-European *bʰed-rós (better)

Behtar بهتر ← Middle Persian weh (good) ← Old Persian vahu 𐎺𐎢 (good)

English “saint”and Hindi “sant”

These ones aren’t quite identical in meaning, but similar enough to be weird. In Christianity, a saint is someone who is revered for being especially holy and close to God. In Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, a sant is someone who is revered for their knowledge of truth and reality, and in Sikhism, it is someone who has reached enlightenment through closeness to God.

Saint ← Old English sanct (saint) ← Latin sanctus (holy, saint) ← PIE *seh₂k- (to sanctify)

Sant संत ← Sanskrit sat सत् (existing, being) ← Proto-Indo-Iranian *Hsánts (being) ← PIE *h₁sónts (being)

English “dog”and Mbabaram “dog”

No list of linguistic coincidences would be complete without mentioning Mbabaram. It’s a native Australian Aboriginal language. Actually it was a native Australian Aboriginal language: it sadly died out in 1979. It is best remembered for a single, very notable word: “dog”, which was the Mbabaram word for “dog”.

English dog ← Middle English dogge ← Old English dogga

Mbabaram dog ← *dwog ← *udwoga ← Proto-Pama-Nyungan *gudaga.

What are we supposed to do with this information?

As well as being interesting and weird, all these words teach us an important lesson: coincidences are everywhere. We mustn’t be fooled into jumping to conclusions about a topic based on limited sample sizes. This is a trap many linguists have fallen into: trying to compare unrelated languages based on a handful of false cognates or other coincidences, and it’s usually misguided. With so many thousands of words in every language, it’s easy to cherry-pick data and present an argument that is totally flawed.

If you enjoyed this comic, check out the others in this series:

Dizzying Doublets

Rampant Rebracketing

Or see find all my creations including more than a dozen linguistics related posts, on my homepage.

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