this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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Today I Learned (TIL)

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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

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Well, no, it's not, since emoji is not a Latin word. It is a fun factoid though!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Japanese doesn't have different forms for plural, so "emoji" can be both singular and plural.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

yeah, if anything they might collectivize it like "emoji-tachi". though I've never heard it used that way.