What is the cognate of a word

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In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language.^[1] Because language change can have radical effects on both the sound and the meaning of a word, cognates may not be obvious, and often it 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.

The term cognate derives from the Latin noun cognatus ‘blood relative’.^[2]

Characteristics[edit]

Cognates need not have the same meaning, which may have changed 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.

An example of cognates from the same Indo-European root are: night (English), nicht (Scots), 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), νύξ, nyx (Ancient Greek), νύχτα / nychta (Modern Greek), nakt- (Sanskrit), natë (Albanian), nox, gen. sg. noctis (Latin), nuit (French), noche (Spanish), 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’.

False cognates[edit]

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.^[3]

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’.^[4]

Distinctions[edit]

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 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.

[edit]

• The etymon, or ancestor word, is the ultimate source word whence one or more cognates derive. For example, the etymon of both Welsh ceffyl and Irish capall would be the Proto-Celtic *kaballos (all meaning horse). Outside of historical linguistics, a parallel term for an etymon is a root or root word. In this usage however, the analysis is limited to within a single language rather than across separate languages. Run, as such, can be said to be the root of both running and runs, while happy would be the root word of such others as unhappiness or happily.
• A derivative is any word coming from a particular etymon. Similar to the distinction between etymon and root above, a nuanced distinction can sometimes be made between a derivative and a descendant. Descendant can be used more narrowly within the context of historical linguistics to emphasize a word inherited across a language barrier. For example, Russian мо́ре and Polish morze are both descendants of Proto-Slavic *moře (meaning sea). By contrast, within the study of morphological derivation, unhappy, happily, and unhappily are all derivatives of the word happy.

See also[edit]

• Homology (biology)
• Indo-European vocabulary

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Last Update: Jan 03, 2023

This is a question our experts keep getting from time to time. Now, we have got the complete detailed explanation and answer for everyone, who is interested!

Asked by: Sister Gibson

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In linguistics, cognates, also called lexical cognates, are words that have a common etymological origin. Cognates are often inherited from a shared parent language, but they may also involve borrowings from some other language.

What is an example of a cognate?

A cognate is a word that is related in origin to another word, such as the English word brother and the German word bruder or the English word history and the Spanish word historia. … For example, the words fragile and frail both came from the Latin word fragilis.

What are cognate words?

Cognates are words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation. … One example of a cognate with multiple meanings is asistir, which means to assist (same meaning) but also to attend (different meaning).

What is a cognate simple definition?

1 : of the same or similar nature : generically alike the cognate fields of film and theater. 2 : related by blood a family cognate with another also : related on the mother’s side. 3a : related by descent from the same ancestral language Spanish and French are cognate languages.

What are cognates 3 examples?

Cognates are words in two different languages that have similar meanings and spellings because they have the same linguistic derivation.
…
Here are some examples of cognates in English and Spanish:

25 related questions found

A cognate is a word that is related in origin to another word, such as the English word brother and the German word bruder or the English word history and the Spanish word historia. The words were derived from the same source; thus, they are cognates (like cousins tracing their ancestry). Because they come from the same origin, cognates have similar meanings and often similar spellings in two different languages. 

«Cognates are often derived from Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian) that have their origins in Latin, although some are derived from other language families (e.g., Germanic),» noted Patricia F. Vadasy and J. Ron Nelson in their book «Vocabulary Instruction for Struggling Students» (Guilford Press, 2012).  

If two words in the same language are derived from the same origin, they’re called doublets; likewise, three are triplets. A doublet may have come into English from two different languages. For example, the words fragile and frail both came from the Latin word fragilis. Frail came into English from French into Old English and stayed on through Middle and now Modern English, and the word fragile was borrowed directly from Latin instead of going through French first.

Origins of Cognates

The Romance languages have so much in common etymologically because the Roman Empire brought Latin to those regions. Of course, regional dialects were already established in present-day Spain, Portugal, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, but because of the relative stability of the empire, Latin influenced vocabulary throughout these regions for a long period, especially in the sciences and law.

Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, Latin was still in use in various forms and continued to move into areas where the empire hadn’t been, such as Slavic and Germanic regions. It was useful as a universal language for people from different regions to be able to communicate.

Christian missionaries brought the Roman alphabet to present-day Britain during the first millennium of the common era, and Latin remained in use in the Catholic church even as the Middle Ages evolved into the Renaissance.

When the Normans conquered England in 1066, Latin words and roots came into English via Old French. Some English words also came from Latin itself, thus creating doublets, two words with the same origin in the same language. The cognates would be the French words and the English words derived from them and the Latin originals. The derived words are all related to a common ancestor.

Examples of Cognates

Here are a few examples of cognates (including those that share only the stem and not all the affixes, which are semi-cognates, or paronyms) and their roots:

• night: nui (French), noche (Spanish), Nacht (German), nacht (Dutch), natt (Swedish, Norwegian); root: Indo-European, nókʷt
• constipated: constipado (Spanish); root (stem): Latin cōnstipāt—
• nourish: nutrir (Spanish), noris (Old French); root: nutritivus (Medieval Latin)
• atheist: ateo/a (Spanish), athéiste (French), atheos (Latin); root: átheos (Greek)
• controversy: controversia (Spanish); root: controversus (Latin)
• comic (meaning comedian): cómico (Spanish); root: cōmĭcus (Latin)
• abortion: aborto (Spanish); root: abŏrtus (Latin)
• government: gobierno (Spanish), governement (Old French), gubernus (Late Latin); root: gŭbĕrnāre (Latin, loaned from Greek)

Obviously, not all the cognates for a root are listed, and not all of these words came directly from Latin into English. These examples show some of the most common ancestral roots. Note that some words have changed in between their roots and the cognates listed. For example, government came into English from French, where many «b»s became «v»s. Language is always evolving, though it may not seem like it, because it’s gradual, happening over centuries.  

Cognates and Language Learning

Because of the relationship between Romance languages and their roots in Latin, learning a third language can be easier than learning a second because of the similarity in vocabulary, for example, learning French after already understanding Spanish.

Author Annette M. B. de Groot illustrated the concept in «Bilingual Cognition: An Introduction» with an example that compares Swedish and Finnish learners of English: «… Ringbom (1987) reasoned that the existence of cognates might be one reason why Swedes are generally better in English than Finns; English and Swedish are related languages, sharing many cognates, whereas English and Finnish are completely unrelated. The consequence is that a Finn will be at a complete loss when encountering an unknown English word, whereas in many cases a Swede may infer at least part of the English cognate’s meaning.»

English-Spanish Cognates

Using cognates to teach vocabulary can be helpful to English language learners (ELL), especially those students whose native language is Spanish, because of the great amount of overlap between the two languages.

Authors Shira Lubliner and Judith A. Scott noted, «Researchers indicate that English-Spanish cognates account for one-third of educated adult vocabulary (Nash, 1997) and 53.6 percent of English words are of Romance-language origin (Hammer, 1979).» («Nourishing Vocabulary: Balancing Words and Learning.» Corwin, 2008) 

Not only can you learn new-language words faster and infer meaning to figure words out in context, but you can also remember the vocabulary more easily when the words are cognates. This kind of language study can begin with learners as early as preschool age.

Problems that come with learning vocabulary through cognates include pronunciation and false cognates. Two words might share similar spellings but be pronounced differently. For example, the word animal is spelled the same way in English and Spanish but pronounced with different stresses in each language.

False, Accidental, and Partial Cognates

False cognates are two words in different languages that appear to be cognates but actually are not (for example, the English advertisement and the French avertissement, which means «warning» or «caution»). They’re also called false friends. Author Annette M. B. De Groot shared some examples:

«False cognates are etymologically related but no longer overlap in meaning between the languages; their meanings may be related but also opposite (in English an auditorium is a place for a large gathering, whereas in Spanish an auditorio is an audience; stretch means ‘to extend’ in English but estretcher in Spanish is ‘to make narrow’). Accidental cognates are not etymologically related but just happen to share form (English juice and Spanish juicio, ‘judge’…).» («Language and Cognition in Bilinguals and Multilinguals: An Introduction.» Psychology Press, 2011)

Partial cognates are words that have the same meaning in some contexts but not others. «For example, twig and Zweig are used similarly in some contexts, but in other contexts, Zweig is better translated as ‘branch’. Both Zweig and branch have metaphoric meanings (‘a branch of a business’) which twig does not share.» (Uta Priss and L. John Old, «Bilingual Word Association Networks» in «Conceptual Structures: Knowledge Architectures for Smart Applications,» ed. by Uta Priss et al. Springer, 2007)

My husband called me this evening on his way to work and let me know that he had been in a car accident. Thankfully, everybody is okay, but the car is a little banged up. Now, if we were in Mexico, and he had been involved in a fender-bender, he would’ve still called me, and told me he was in an accidente. Now, I have never taken a Spanish class in my life, but thanks for cognates, I would know that he had been involved in a car accident.

A cognate is a word that comes from the same origin as a word in a different language. Cognates generally have similarities in spelling, pronunciation, and meaning. So, even though I don’t speak Spanish, I could discern that accidente was the same as an accident in English.

History of Cognates

These dialects are important because English speakers speak a mix between the Angles and Saxon subsets of Germanic Old English. But other languages are other mixes of these Germanic languages.

Just like when you go to the South, a dialect might be so thick that you can’t understand the speaker, dialects in 500 B.C. operated much the same. Even though these four dialects were spoken in Britain, over time, they created different languages altogether. 

Modern English

Around 1480 B.C., the English language transitioned into Modern English. With this transition came more intentional use of vowels, but also our first indicator of cognates. After the Norman Conquest, the French invaded Britain and brought with them French words. Slowly, French words began to enter into the English language, especially with words about royalty, food, and laws.

After the British Empire, the English language moved rapidly through various countries, and in the process, the English language picked up more cognates, dialects, and slang. 

Cognates in English

The English language likes words for Latin (Spanish, French, and Italian), which is why many English words have similar counterparts in the Romantic/Italic languages. 

Doublets vs. Triplets

If two words in the same language come from the same origin, they are called doublets. If three terms in the same language come from the same origin, they are called triplets.

This is a fancy way of saying that a word may have entered into the English language from two different routes. For example,

• Stand = Native
• Stay = Middle French
• State and Status = Latin
• Static = Ancient Greek via Latin

While all of these words have the same meanings, they entered into the English language from different lines. This is an example of a doublet or triplet cognate in English.

Three Types of Cognates

There are three different kinds of cognates. These cognates are still considered valid but have a few distinctions that set them apart from each other.

1. Words that are spelled the same.

These words are exactly the same in English and another language. This is the most easily identifiable cognate and doesn’t require much explanation to understand them.

1. Words that are spelled slightly differently.

These words may have an additional letter, but for the most part, are written the same in English and another Romantic language. If you are reading and encounter a word that you don’t know, but it is spelled like a word that you know in English, then it’s a safe bet that you have encountered a cognate.

3. Words that are spelled differently, but sound similar.

You may encounter a word that looks completely different than it’s English counterpart, but after saying the word aloud, you may be able to identify the word. For example, initial in English and incial in Spanish are cognates.

False Cognates

One final rule about cognates to determine if a word is a false cognate. A false cognate is a pair of words that appear to be cognates because they sound or look alike, but they are derived from different languages. 

An example of a false cognate includes how many languages reduce the word mother down to “ma.” While this seems like the two words are tied together, they are not. Since one word is derived from Latin (Mother), and one is slang (Ma).

This is an incredibly hyper-focused look at cognates and not a common occurrence. Still, it is important to know that just because a word appears to be a cognate, there are certain circumstances where they are false. 

Examples of Cognates

English Word	Cognates
Animal	El Animal	Spanish
Hospital	El Hospital	Spanish
Garden	Garten	German
Friend	Freud	German
Activism	Activismo	Portuguese
Visual	Visuel	French
Move	Movimento	Italian
Rhythm	rytm	Swedish
Feelings	sentimento	Italian

Why Do We Need to Know This?

There are a handful of reasons why understanding cognates is helpful.

Understanding a New Language

The first is that when you can identify cognates, you will be able to learn new languages more easily. If English is your first language, then learning another Latin-based language (like Spanish or French) will come more easily to you. If you are trying to master a third language, it will come even easier.

When we get continued exposure to these cognates, it is easier for us to pick them up without even thinking. Plus, you will be able to remember vocabulary words easier and be able to apply the words you know to their cognate counterparts.

Understanding Words Out of Context

Additionally, since the English language is built with many cognates, you might be able to use them to understand words more easily. 

This is where your knowledge of roots and prefixes might be helpful. Since many cognates share similar prefixes, you will be able to more quickly identify a definition of a word that you don’t know. For example, if you know the root bio means life, then you will be able to define biology, bioluminescence, and biosphere, even if you don’t fully grasp the meanings of the words.

Conclusion

Language is often a great unifier because so many different languages blend to create their vocabulary. As we discussed, the Romantic and Germanic languages were the building blocks of the English language. And while the English language has many unique words (for example, you won’t find “yeet” in any Old English textbooks), many of the words can be found as cognates in other languages. 

This is a helpful resource for many students, as understanding cognates to unlock many different languages basic vocabulary and help understand more complex English words. 

If you can correctly identify cognates, you will be able to grasp words with more ease than if you didn’t realize that many terms are shared across languages. 

The English language is a complex language to master, so it makes sense that even English-speaking students struggle with mastery of these concepts in school. Do you find yourself scratching your head when you are reading about these various English topics? ArgoPrep is the perfect solution for you! With workbooks for all ages and stages, you can find the perfect resource to master the English language.

For more information about English topics, just like cognates, check out the ArgoPrep blog!

• English: nourish:

• Spanish: nutrir

• Old French: noris

Fig. 2 — Out of all 44 Romance languages, the most widely spoken is Spanish (over 500 million speakers).