TIL about False cognates, pairs of words [with] similar sounds and meaning, but different etymologies; "For example, the English word dog and the Mbabaram word dog" - eviltoast

There is a table of examples in the link. Some I saw include:

Desert

  • desert Latin dēserō (“to abandon”) << ultimately PIE **seh₁- (“to sow”)
  • Ancient Egyptian: Deshret (refers to the land not flooded by the Nile)  from dšr (red)

Shark

  • shark Middle English shark from uncertain origin
  • Chinese 鲨 (shā)  Named as its crude skin similar to sand (沙 (shā))

Kayak

  • Inuktitut ᖃᔭᖅ (kayak) Proto-Eskimo *qyaq
  • Turkish kayık (‘small boat’)[17] Old Turkic kayguk << Proto-Turkic kay- (“to slide, to turn”)

A lot of these could be TIL posts of their own.

I also wonder if some of these are actually false cognates, or if there is a much earlier common origin with false associations that came afterwards

    • frank@sopuli.xyz
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      5 days ago

      Right, for sure if you were to pluralize emoji (which is singular) it wouldn’t be emojus in japanese.

      I was gonna toss some guesses here but it’s a word I don’t think you pluralize really, as we don’t in English

      • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
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        5 days ago

        Japanese doesn’t have different forms for plural, so “emoji” can be both singular and plural.