False friend

Categories: Language comparison

False friends are pairs of words in two languages (or letters in two alphabets) that look and/or sound similar, but differ in meaning.

False cognates, by contrast, are similar words in different languages that do have similar meanings, despite not sharing any common root.

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The problem

Both false friends and false cognates can cause difficulty for students learning a foreign language, particularly one that is related to their native language, because the students are likely to misidentify the words due to language interference. Since false friends are a common problem for language learners, teachers sometimes compile lists of false friends as an aid for their students.

Even compilers of bilingual dictionaries are sometimes fooled by false friends, particularly when they are cognates. For example, the Spanish embarazada at first glance looks like "embarrassed," but actually means "pregnant." The best defense for the language student is to use a monolingual dictionary in the target language as a final authority.

Comedy sometimes includes puns on false friends, which are considered particularly amusing if one of the two words is obscene; when an obscene meaning is produced in these circumstances, it is called cacemphaton (κακεμφάτον), Greek for 'bad-looking'.

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Causes

From the etymological point of view, false friends can be created in several ways:

  • Cognates. If Language A borrowed a word from Language B, then in one language the word shifted in meaning or had more meanings added, a native speaker of one language will face a false friend when learning the other.
For example, the words preservative (English), Präservativ (German), prezervativ (Romanian), preservativo (Italian) and prezerwatywa (Polish) are all derived from the French préservatif. However, in all of these languages except English, the predominant meaning of the word has become "condom", while the most common French word for "preservative" is now conservateur.
  • Homonyms. In certain cases, false friends evolved separately in the two languages. Words usually develop by sound shifts over many hundreds of years and end up looking and/or sounding the same despite having completely different meanings and deriving from different roots.
For example, Chinese wǒmen (= we). German Rat (= council) is cognate with English read and German Rede (= speech), while English rat for the mammal, has its German cognate Ratte.
For example, Roman "P" came to be written like Greek "Rho" (written "Ρ" but pronounced as English "R"), so the Roman letter equivalent to rho was modified to "R" to keep it distinct.
  • Pseudo-anglicisms. These are artificially created words constructed from elements borrowed from English, but whose morphemes do not actually exist in English.
For example, in German: Oldtimer refers to an old car rather than an old person, handy refers to a mobile telephone, while Beamer refers to a video projector, and not a type of cricket delivery or a BMW automobile.
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See also

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External links

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References

  • Geoff Parkes and Alan Cornell (1992), 'NTC's Dictionary of German False Cognates', National Textbook Company, NTC Publishing Group.de:Falscher Freund

es:Falsos amigos fr:Faux-ami hu:Hamis barát nl:Taalvos sv:Falska vänner