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In linguistics, 'cognates' are words that have a common origin. They may occur within a language, such as ''shirt'' and ''skirt'' as two English words descended from the Proto-Indo-European word ''
★ sker-'', meaning "to cut". They may also occur across languages, e.g. ''night'' and German ''Nacht'' as descendants of Proto-Indo-European ''
★ nokt-'', "night".
The word ''cognate'' derives from Latin ''cognatus'', from ''co'' (''with'') +''gnatus'', ''natus'', past participle of ''nascor'' "to be born".^[1] Literally it means "related by blood, having a common ancestor, or related by an analogous nature, character, or function".^[2]

Contents

Characteristics of cognate words

Cognates across languages

Cognates within the same language

False cognates

Parliamentary term

Mechanical systems

Molecular Biology term

References

See also

Characteristics of cognate words

Cognates need not have the same meaning: ''dish'' (English) and ''Tisch'' ("table", German), or ''starve'' (English) and ''sterben'' ("die", German), or ''head'' (English) and ''chef'' ("chief, head", French), serve as examples as to how cognate terms may diverge in meaning as languages develop separately, eventually becoming false friends.
In addition to having separate meanings, cognates through processes of linguistic change may no longer resemble each other phonetically: ''cow'' and ''beef'' both derive from the same Indo-European root ''
★ g''ou''-, ''cow'' having developed through the Germanic language family while ''beef'' has arrived in English from the Italo-Romance family descent. (ModE ''cow'' < ME ''cou'' < OE ''cū'' < PIE ''
★ g''ou'' > Latin ''bos'' > Latin ''bovis'' (genitive) > OFr ''boef'' > ME ''beef'')
Cognates may thus also arise through borrowings into languages. So the resemblance between English ''to pay'' and French ''payer'' originates through English borrowing ''to pay'' from Norman which, like French, had derived its word from Gallo-Romance.

Cognates across languages

Examples of cognates in Indo-European languages are the words ''night'' (English), ''nuit'' (French), ''Nacht'' (German, Dutch), ''nicht'' (Scots), ''natt'' (Swedish), ''nat'' (Danish) ''noc'' (Czech, Polish), ночь, ''noch'' (Russian), ''nich'' (Ukrainian), ''noć'' (Croatian, Serbian), νύξ, ''nyx'' (Greek), ''nox'' (Latin), ''nakt-'' (Sanskrit), ''natë'' (Albanian), ''noche'' (Spanish), ''nos'' (Welsh), ''noite'' (Portuguese and Galician), ''notte'' (Italian), ''nit'' (Catalan), ''noapte'' (Romanian), ''nótt'' (Icelandic), ''natt'' (Norwegian), and ''naktis'' (Lithuanian), all meaning "night" and derived from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) ''
★ nokt-'', "night."
Another Indo-European example is ''star'' (English), ''str'' (Sanskrit)^[3], ''astre'' or ''étoile'' (French), ''taru'' (Sinhala), ''αστήρ (astēr)'' (Greek), ''stella'' (Latin, Italian), ''stea'' (Romanian and Venetian), ''stairno'' (Gothic), ''astl'' (Armenian), ''Stern'' (German), ''ster'' (Dutch and Afrikaans), ''starn'' (Scots), ''stjerne'' (Norwegian), ''stjarna'' (Icelandic), ''stjärna'' (Swedish), ''setare'' (Persian), ''sitarah'' (Hindi), ''seren'' (Welsh), ''steren'' (Cornish), ''estel'' (Catalan), ''estrella'' (Spanish), ''estrela'' (Portuguese and Galician) and ''estêre'' (Kurdish), from the PIE ''
★ hstēr-'', "star".
The Hebrew ''shalom'' and the Arabic ''salaam'' ("peace") are also cognates, derived from a common Semitic root, having the triliteral ''slm''.

Cognates within the same language

Cognates can exist within the same language. For example, English ''ward'' and ''guard'' (★ wer-'', "to perceive, watch out for") are cognate as are ''shirt'' and ''skirt'' (★ sker-'', "to cut"). In some cases, such as "shirt" and "skirt", one of the cognate pairs has an ultimate source in another language related to English, while the other one is native, as happened with many loanwords from Old Norse (which was mutually intelligible with Old English) borrowed when the Vikings conquered part of England. Sometimes, both cognates come from other languages, often the same one but at different times. For example, the word ''chief'' comes from the Middle French ''chef'', and its modern pronunciation preserves the Middle French consonant sound. The word ''chef'' was borrowed from the same source centuries later, by which time the consonant had changed to a "sh"-sound in French. Such words are said to be etymological twins.
Cognates may often be less easily recognised than the above examples and authorities sometimes differ in their interpretations of the evidence. The English word ''milk'' is clearly a cognate of German ''Milch'' and of Russian ''moloko'' (★ melg-'', "to milk"). On the other hand, French ''lait'' and Spanish ''leche'' (both meaning "milk") are less obviously cognates of Greek ''galaktos'' (genitive form of ''gala'', milk) (<''
★ g(a)lag-'', ''galakt-''), as is the English word ''lactic''.

False cognates

Main articles: False cognate

False cognates are words that are commonly thought to be related (have a common origin) whereas linguistic examination reveals they are unrelated. Thus, for example, on the basis of superficial similarities one might suppose that the Latin verb ''habere'' and German ''haben'', both meaning 'to have', are cognates. However, an understanding of the way words in the two languages evolve from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots shows that they cannot be cognate (see for example Grimm's law). German ''haben'' (like English ''have'') in fact comes from PIE ''
★ kap'', 'to grasp', and its real cognate in Latin is ''capere'', 'to seize, grasp, capture'. Latin ''habere'', on the other hand, is from PIE ''
★ ghabh'', 'to give, to receive', and hence cognate with English ''give'' and German ''geben''.
The similarity of words between languages is ''not'' enough to demonstrate that the words are related to each other, in much the same way that facial resemblance does not determine whether two people are genetically related. Over the course of hundreds and thousands of years, words may change their sound completely. Thus, for example, English ''five'' and Sanskrit ''pança'' are cognates, while English ''over'' and Hebrew ''a'var'' are not, and neither are English ''dog'' and Mbabaram ''dog''.
Contrast this with false friends, which frequently ''are'' cognate.

Parliamentary term

In a parliamentary sense, a cognate debate means that two or more bills can be debated together, if the House does not object to the matter. Bills are only debated cognately if they are closely related.

Mechanical systems

In Mechanical Systems, the term "cognate" has been used by Hartenburg and Denavit to describe a linkage, of different geometry, which generates the same coupler curve.

Molecular Biology term

In molecular biology a ligand may have a cognate receptor. This is a receptor that specifically binds to that ligand.

References

1. ''Cassell's Latin Dictionary
2. [1] Dictionary definition of 'cognate' on Answers.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
3. Random House Unabridged Dictionary

See also

★ Cognate object

★ Historical-comparative linguistics

★ Paronym

★ False friend