Funny false friends

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English and French savant (in French, it means ‘scholar’, but it’s close enough as far as this is concerned), and Esperanto savant’ (apocopic form of savanto, ‘savior’).



Paca nokt’, sankta nokt’.
Tra la land’ vibras kant’.
Ho paŝtistoj, mi diras al vi:
Jen en stalo la beba Mesi’,
Li de l’ mondo Savant’,
Li de l’ mondo Savant’.

(Peaceful night, holy night.
Through the land vibrates a song.
Oh shepherds, I say unto you:
Behold in a stable the baby Messiah,
Him the world’s Savior,
Him the world’s Savior.)

English much (a Germanic word) is unrelated to Spanish mucho (‘much, a lot [of]’), which comes from Latin multus. Portuguese being a more conservative Romance language than Spanish, this Latin etymon is more easily recognizable in the Portuguese cognate muito.

I find it amusing that the chance resemblance between English much and Spanish mucho, together with one of the few innovative traits of Portuguese, the evolution of certain instances of -l- following another consonant into -r-, cause the English expression much obliged to look more Spanish-like than Portuguese-like, despite the existence of muito obrigado in the latter language, while there’s no such expression in Spanish (in addition, Spanish grammar would require it to be muy obligado, rather than *mucho obligado). Portuguese muito obrigado means essentially the same as English much obliged, except that the former (or just obrigado if you don’t want to be so emphatic) is the standard way to thank someone in modern Portuguese, while, of course, in English, it’s much more common to say thank you or thanks.

Multum obligati sumus tibi ob haec relata!

The German word Matsch (mud) is exactly pronounced like the English word much.

Spanish ánimo ('spirit, mood') and French animaux ('animals'). Although their phonemes are almost identical, these words don't necessarily sound very alike to a Spanish speaker, because the former is always stressed on the first syllable, as marked by the accent (Á - ni - mo), whereas the syllables of the latter don't vary much in loudness or pitch, unless the word is pronounced in isolation or the last in an utterance, when the last syllable receives a predictable, non-lexical stress (a - ni - MAUX).

Note animo (a - NI - mo, '[I] inspire' or '[I] animate') and animó (a - ni - MÓ, '[he/she/it] inspired' or '[he/she/it] animated') are also Spanish words, distiguished from ánimo only by lexical stress.

However, since French has no lexical stress, any of these three words is likely to sound to a French speaker very similar to animaux. I can't source it, but I've been told a big fight broke out once between French and Spanish supporters at some sports match, because the latter were shouting, "¡Ánimo! ¡Ánimo! ¡Ánimo!" (this noun is often used as an interjection to cheer for someone), and the former thought they were calling them animals.

Multum obligati sumus tibi ob haec relata!

According to the English version of Wiktionary, michel seems to be a German cognate to English much. Unfortunately, I can't find it in the German version.

Esperanto jena ('shown here') and Spanish hiena ('hyaena').

English ray, Spanish rey and Portuguese rei (the last two are pronounced essentially the same and mean 'king').

I've recently found this video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjMKXsCnsZoe[/youtube]

Setting aside the fact that there are plenty of white native Spanish speakers, who have no physiological impediment to uttering those words, it's interesting how they refuse to say negar ('to deny')

Considering it has two full vowels (there are no reduced vowels in Spanish), and the stress falls on the last syllable, it doesn't even sound as similar to the N-word as they probably think it does.

PS -- Why do my videos seem broken, too?

English never and Spanish nevera ('fridge'). The latter comes from nieve ('snow'), and is a holdover from the time when snow was used to keep food cold. The synonym frigorífico, without this historical association, is also in common use.

Esperanto vokata ('called') and Spanish bocata (slangish form of bocadillo, 'sandwich').

Spanish almeja ('clam') and Portuguese almeja ('[he/she/it] yearns'). The latter is a form of the verb almejar ('to yearn'), which comes from alma ('soul'); think "to wish with one's entire soul". Considering Spanish almeja is also used as an uncouth metaphor for the vulva, it's easy to make a crude mnemonic connecting it with great desire.

The Portuguese cognate to Spanish almeja, and, indeed, the Portuguese word for 'clam', is amêijoa. As far as I know, there's no Spanish cognate to the Portuguese verb almejar, but, since both its root and its derivative suffix have Spanish cognates, one can tell its expected form would be almear. The third-person singular present indicative form would then be almea. Nothing to do with Mark Rosenfelder's Almea, though.

English: lied
German: lied (song)

English: lead
German: lied
(pronounced the same)

English: mask
Swedish: mask (worm, and mask)

Swedish: syra (acid)
Norwegian: syra (the acid)

Swedish: syre (oxygen)
Norwegian: syre (acid)

Norwegian: sure (sour)
English: sure