False friend

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False friends (or faux amis) are pairs of words in two languages or dialects (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 appear to have a common historical linguistic origin (regardless of meaning) but actually do not.

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[edit] Implications

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 students are likely to misidentify the words due to linguistic interference. Because false friends are a common problem for language learners, teachers sometimes compile lists of false friends as an aid for their students.

One kind of false friend can occur when two speakers each speak different varieties of the same language. Speakers of British English and American English sometimes have this problem, which was alluded to in George Bernard Shaw's statement "England and America are two countries divided by a common language." For example, in the UK, to "table" a motion means to place it on the agenda, while in the U.S. it means exactly the opposite—to remove it from consideration. See List of words having different meanings in British and American English.

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 "ill-sounding".

[edit] Causes

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

  • Borrowing. 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), préservatif (French), Präservativ (German), prezervativ (Romanian, Czech), preservativo (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese), prezerwatywa (Polish) and preservatiu (Catalan) are all derived from the Latin word praeservativum. However, in all of these languages except English, the predominant meaning of the word has become condom. Actual has a different meaning in English from what it means in other European languages, where it means current or up-to-date, and has the logically derivative verb to actualise meaning to make current or to update. Demand in English and demande in French are representative of a particularly treacherous sort of false friend, where -- despite a common origin -- the words not only have different, but almost precisely opposite meanings. In French, a demande is a request, not a forceful requirement.
  • Homonyms. In certain cases, false friends evolved separately in the two languages. Words usually change by small shifts in pronunciation accumulated over long periods and sometimes converge by chance on the same pronunciation or look despite having come from different roots.
For example, German Rat (pronounced with a long a) (= council) is cognate with English read and German Rede (= speech), while English rat for the rodent has its German cognate Ratte.
For example, Roman "P" came to be written like Greek "Rho" (written "Ρ" but pronounced [r]), so the Roman letter equivalent to rho was modified to "R" to keep it distinct.
  • Pseudo-anglicisms. These are new words formed from English morphemes independently from an analogous English construct and with a different intended meaning.
For example, in German: Oldtimer refers to an old car (or antique aircraft) rather than an old person, while Handy refers to a mobile telephone.
Japanese is replete with pseudo-anglicisms, known as wasei-eigo ("Japan-made English"). A particularly complicated one is the word naitā which means night-time baseball game. It is derived from the American twi-nighter which is short for twi-night doubleheader, baseball slang meaning two games played by the same teams in a single day, one in the afternoon and the other in the evening, usually starting at twilight and continuing into the night. The Japanese naitā is strictly Japanese baseball slang, and is unknown to American baseball fans. In English, nitre (of very similar pronunciation) is a name for potassium nitrate.
  • Idioms. Some phrases commonly used in one culture and language may lose context when translated to another language, conveying a totally different meaning.
For example I'll call you back means that I will return your call, or make a later attempt to call you again. However, translating literally to Spanish would end up in something like te llamaré para atrás. Although this phrase has no meaning whatsoever in Spanish, it is used frequently in Puerto Rico, and can be confusing when heard by other Spanish-speakers. The correct translation would be te volveré a llamar or te devuelvo la llamada (I'll return your call).[citations needed]

[edit] Examples

The Parker Pen Company may have experienced a case of such confusion when they were trying to translate their slogan "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you" for the Latino market. As they mistakenly thought embarazar meant to embarrass, the Spanish slogan was proudly displayed across Latin communities as: "It won't leak in your pocket and impregnate you" (to embarrass in Spanish is "avergonzar").[1]

Words like "hot dog" can come out lost in translation, and especially since words carry different connotations in different areas; Richard Lederer, an author and professor of English, reports going to Germany and asking a vendor for a heißen Hund (a literal translation of "hot dog"). The vendor broke out laughing, for in German, heißer Hund suggests a dog in heat (Germans use the English term "hot dog" as a loan phrase).

Also, since English and German have the same etymological origins, there actually are a great number of words in both languages that are very similar and do have the same meaning (i.e. word/Wort, book/Buch, house/Haus, water/Wasser, ...). However, similar words with a different meaning are also quite common (e. g. bekommen means to get, that is, to come by, not to become, and is thus a false friend, which could lead a German English learner to utter an embarrassing sentence like: "I want to become a beefsteak.")[2]. This often causes some confusion for native speakers of one language learning the other language, and equally confusing (and sometimes amusing) for the listener who speaks the learnt language. Another example is the word 'gift', which in English means 'present' but in German and the Scandinavian languages means 'poison'.

An example in Spanish/English is 'red', with different pronunciation in both languages. This obviously refers to the colour in English but means 'network' in Spanish, and therefore gives rise to such phrases as red inalámbrica (wireless network).

The Latin root of concur has several meanings; to meet (in battle) and to meet (in agreement). In many European languages, words derived from this root take after the first meaning - English being a notable exception (i.e. French concurrent is a competitor in English).

Swedish/English false friends were used intentionally for comedic purposes in the song "Tänk att män som han kan finnas" from the Swedish musical Kristina från Duvemåla. Three Swedish immigrants and an American pastor try to communicate in their respective languages. The humor lies in the verses, in which English and Swedish lines are connected by false friend pairs at the beginning and end of each line, such as "If you're hungry there's more of the deer that I caught." - "Han är kåt! (He is horny!)"[citations needed]

[edit] See also

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Sandy Serva, iLanguage: Translations for Global Research, Jan 2003, Vol. 26, Issue 1, p 51.
  2. ^ Geoff Parkes, Alan Cornell, 1992, "NTC's Dictionary of German False Cognates", National Textbook Company, NTC Publishing Group

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