What is a cognate?
what is a cognate?
3 Answers
Cognates, technically, are two words that have the same root. It's often used, though, to describe two words that sound similar and have the same meaning. The example my dictionary gives for a cognate is this:
English: is
German: ist
Latin: est
Spanish: es
French: est
Indo-European: esti
All those words share the same root, making them cognates.
In a technical sense, two words that have a common origin are cognates. Most often, cognates are words in two languages that have a common etymology and thus are similar or identical. For example, the English "kiosk" and the Spanish quiosco are cognates because they both come from the Turkish kosk.
Cognates often have a similar meaning, and the term "cognate" also is used to refer to words in two languages that are similar but have no common origin.
There are literally thousands of Spanish / English cognates...take a look here!
Be careful with the false cognates! They are words that have the same spelling or similar pronunciation but have a totally different meaning.
Examples:
Sensible in English means clever, intelligent.
Sensible in Spanish means sensitive
More examples on this link: http://spanish.about.com/cs/vocabulary/a/obviouswrong.htm
I had a list, but I can't find it, I'll update later when I find it.
EDIT: Found it!
http://www.englishcom.com.mx/downloads/FalseCognatesEC.pdf
