false friend

{{Short description|Words in two languages that sound similar but have very different meanings}}

{{Redirect|False Friends|the TV series episode|False Friends (Homeland)}}

{{For|people who falsely appear to be friends|Frenemy|False flag}}

In linguistics, a false friend is a word in a different language that looks or sounds similar to a word in a given language, but differs significantly in meaning. Examples of false friends include English embarrassed and Spanish {{Lang|es|embarazada}} ('pregnant'); English parents versus Portuguese {{Lang|pt|parentes}} and Italian {{Lang|it|parenti}} (the latter two both meaning 'relatives'); English demand and French {{Lang|fr|demander}} ('ask'); and English gift, German {{Lang|de|Gift}} ('poison'), and Norwegian {{Lang|no|gift}} (both 'married' and 'poison').

The term was introduced by a French book, {{Lang|fr|Les faux amis: ou, Les trahisons du vocabulaire anglais}} (False friends: or, the betrayals of English vocabulary), published in 1928.

As well as producing completely false friends, the use of loanwords often results in the use of a word in a restricted context, which may then develop new meanings not found in the original language. For example, {{Lang|de|angst}} means 'fear' in a general sense (as well as 'anxiety') in German, but when it was borrowed into English in the context of psychology, its meaning was restricted to a particular type of fear described as "a neurotic feeling of anxiety and depression".{{cite web|url=http://german.about.com/library/blvoc_gerloan.htm|title=German Loan Words in English|publisher=About.com|access-date=2014-04-28|archive-date=2011-06-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607060111/http://german.about.com/library/blvoc_gerloan2.htm|url-status=dead}} Also, {{Lang|la|gymnasium}} meant both 'a place of education' and 'a place for exercise' in Latin, but its meaning became restricted to the former in German and to the latter in English, making the expressions into false friends in those languages as well as in Ancient Greek, where it started out as 'a place for naked exercise'.{{cite web|url=http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=gymnasium|title=Online Etymology Dictionary|publisher=etymonline.com |access-date=2014-04-28}}

Definition and origin

False friends are bilingual homophones or bilingual homographs,{{cite book |last=Korpela |first=Jukka K. |title=Introduction to Finnish |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ld9BBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT35 |access-date=10 May 2018 |date=12 August 2014 |publisher=Suomen E-painos Oy |location=Helsinki |isbn=978-952-6613-26-0 |page=35}} i.e., words in two or more languages that look similar (homographs) or sound similar (homophones), but differ significantly in meaning.{{cite book |last1=Knospe |first1=Sebastian |last2=Onysko |first2=Alexander |last3=Goth |first3=Maik |title=Crossing Languages to Play with Words: Multidisciplinary Perspectives |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DuUsDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA116 |access-date=10 May 2018 |date=26 September 2016 |publisher=De Gruyter |location=Berlin |isbn=978-3-11-046560-0 |page=116 |oclc=954201320}}

The origin of the term is as a shortened version of the expression "false friend of a translator", the English translation of a French expression ({{langx|fr|faux amis du traducteur}}) introduced by Maxime Kœssler and Jules Derocquigny in their 1928 book,{{cite book|last1=Aronoff|first1=Mark|last2=Rees-Miller|first2=Janie|title=The Handbook of Linguistics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0aFqB-R0MrgC&pg=PA698|access-date=21 December 2019|date=15 April 2008|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|location=New York|isbn=978-0-470-75634-8|page=698|oclc=897574627}}, referring to {{cite book |language=fr |last1=Koessler |first1=Maxime |last2=Derocquigny |first2=Jules |title=Les faux amis: ou, Les trahisons du vocabulaire anglais (conseils aux traducteurs) |trans-title=False Friends, or the treacherous pitfalls of English vocabulary (advice for translators) |url=https://archive.org/details/lesfauxamisoules00kssl |archive-url=https://archive.org/details/lesfauxamisoules00kssl/page/n7 |archive-date=July 9, 2013 |year=1928 |publisher=Vuibert |location=Paris |oclc=999745586 |access-date=21 December 2019}} with a sequel, {{Lang|fr|Autres Mots anglais perfides}}.

Causes

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

= Shared etymology =

File:Cerstve pecivo-slovakian.jpg

If language A borrowed a word from language B, or both borrowed the word from a third language or inherited it from a common ancestor, and later the word shifted in meaning or acquired additional meanings in at least one of these languages, a native speaker of one language will face a false friend when learning the other. Sometimes, presumably both senses were present in the common ancestor language, but the cognate words took on different restricted senses in Language A and Language B.

==In loanwords==

Actual, which in English is usually a synonym of real, has a different meaning in other European languages, in which it means 'current' or 'up-to-date', and has the logical derivative as a verb, meaning 'to make current' or 'to update'. Actualise (or actualize) in English means 'to make a reality of'.{{citation |title=Euro-English: assessing variety status

|last=Mollin |first=Sandra |year=2006 |publisher=Gunter Narr Verlag |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qPhULmMmqJMC&q=using+actual+to+mean+current&pg=PA107|isbn=9783823362500 }}

The Italian word {{Lang|it|confetti}} ('sugared almonds') has acquired a new meaning in English, French and Dutch; in Italian, the corresponding word is {{Lang|it|coriandoli}}.{{cite web |url=http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/confetto |title=Confetto in Enciclopedia Treccani |publisher=Treccani.it |access-date=2014-06-23}}

English and Spanish, both of which have borrowed from Ancient Greek and Latin, have multiple false friends, such as:

class="wikitable"

!English

!Spanish translation

!Spanish

!English translation

actually

|{{Lang|es|en realidad}}

|{{Lang|es|actualmente}}

|currently

|{{Lang|es|publicidad}}

|{{Lang|es|advertencia}}

|warning

bizarre

|{{Lang|es|extraño}}

|{{Lang|es|bizarro}}

|brave

English and Japanese also have diverse false friends, many of them being {{Transliteration|ja|hepburn|wasei-eigo}} and {{Transliteration|ja|hepburn|gairaigo}} words.{{Cite journal|last=Johnson|first=Chalmers|date=1980|title=Omote (Explicit) and Ura (Implicit): Translating Japanese Political Terms|journal=Journal of Japanese Studies|volume=6|issue=1|pages=89–115|doi=10.2307/132001|jstor=132001}}

==In native words==

The word friend itself has cognates in the other Germanic languages, but the Scandinavian ones (like Swedish {{Lang|sv|frände}}, Danish {{Lang|da|frænde}}) predominantly mean 'relative'. The original Proto-Germanic word meant simply 'someone whom one cares for' and could therefore refer to both a friend and a relative, but it lost various degrees of the 'friend' sense in the Scandinavian languages, while it mostly lost the sense of 'relative' in English (the plural friends is still, rarely, used for "kinsfolk", as in the Scottish proverb Friends agree best at a distance, quoted in 1721).

The Estonian and Finnish languages are related, which gives rise to false friends such as swapped forms for south and south-west:

Estonian	Finnish	English
class="wikitable"
{{Lang\|et\|lõuna}}	{{Lang\|fi\|etelä}}	south
{{Lang\|et\|edel}}	{{Lang\|fi\|lounas}}	south-west

Or Estonian {{Lang|et|vaim}} ('spirit' or 'ghost') and Finnish {{Lang|fi|vaimo}} ('wife'); or Estonian {{Lang|et|koristaja}} ('a cleaner') and Finnish {{Lang|fi|koristaja}} ('a decorator').

A high level of lexical similarity exists between German and Dutch,{{Cite news |url=http://languagetsar.com/how-similar-or-different-are-german-and-dutch/ |title=German and Dutch: similar or different? |date=2016-11-17 |work=Language Tsar |access-date=2018-02-15 |language=en-US}} but shifts in meaning of words with a shared etymology have in some instances resulted in 'bi-directional false friends':{{Cite web |url=http://www.uitmuntend.de/extras/valse_vrienden.html |title=valse vrienden – Falsche Freunde |website=uitmuntend.de |language=nl,de |access-date=2018-02-15}}{{Cite web |url=https://www.nubeterduits.nl/website/index.php?pag=132 |title=dürfen / müssen / sollen / mögen |website=nubeterduits.nl |language=nl |access-date=2018-02-15}}

class="wikitable"

!German

!Dutch

!English

|meer

|mere 'lake'

|{{Lang|nl|zee}}

|sea

Note that die See means 'sea', and thus is not a false friend.

class="wikitable"

!German

!Dutch

!English

|{{Lang|nl|houden van}}

|like, love

|{{Lang|nl|mogen}}

|be allowed to

|{{Lang|nl|durven}}

|dare

The meanings could diverge significantly. For example, the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian word {{Lang|poz|*qayam}} ('domesticated animal') became specialized in descendant languages: Malay/Indonesian {{Lang|ms|ayam}} ('chicken'), Cebuano {{Lang|ceb|ayam}} ('dog'), and Gaddang {{Lang|gad|ayam}} ('pig').[https://www.trussel2.com/ACD/acd-s_q.htm#27688 Austronesian Comparative Dictionary]

= Homonyms =

In Swedish, the word {{Lang|sv|rolig}} means 'fun': {{Lang|sv|ett roligt skämt}} 'a funny joke', while in the closely related languages Danish and Norwegian it means 'calm' (as in "he was calm despite all the commotion around him"). However, the Swedish original meaning of 'calm' is retained in some related words such as {{Lang|sv|ro}} 'calmness', and {{Lang|sv|orolig}} 'worrisome, anxious', literally 'un-calm'.{{cite encyclopedia |article=Orolig |date=1950 |title=Svenska Akademiens Ordbok |trans-title=The Swedish Academy's Dictionary |publisher=Swedish Academy |location=Lund |page=spalt O 1337 |volume=19 |url=http://www.saob.se/artikel/?seek=orolig|access-date=8 May 2017|language=sv|quote=[fsv. oroliker; jfr dan. o. nor. urolig, nor. dial. uroleg, nyisl. órólegur (jfr isl. úróliga, adv.), mlt. unrouwelik, (ä.) t. unruhlich; av O- 1 o. ROLIG, lugn, delvis möjl. avledn. av ORO]}} The Danish and Norwegian word {{Lang|da|semester}} means term (as in school term), but the Swedish word {{Lang|sv|semester}} means holiday. The Danish word {{Lang|da|frokost}} means lunch, while the Norwegian word {{Lang|no|frokost}} and the Swedish word {{Lang|sv|frukost}} both mean breakfast.

= Pseudo-anglicisms =

Pseudo-anglicisms are new words formed from English morphemes independently from an analogous English construct and with a different intended meaning.{{cite book|last1=Onysko|first1=Alexander|title=Anglicisms in German: Borrowing, Lexical Productivity, and Written Codeswitching|date=2007|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|location=Berlin/New York|isbn=978-3-11-019946-8|pages=52–55}}

Japanese is notable for its pseudo-anglicisms, known as {{Transliteration|ja|hepburn|wasei-eigo}} ('Japan-made English').{{Cite journal|last1=Ruzhenkova|first1=V.|last2=Platoshina|first2=V.V.|date=2011|title=False friends in converting a text from one script into another|url=http://dspace.bsu.edu.ru/handle/123456789/7513|journal=Experientia Est Optima Magistra: Collected Arts.|pages=126|via=Belgorod State University DSPACE}}{{Cite journal|last=Miller|first=Laura|date=1997|title=Wasei eigo: English 'loanwords' coined in Japan|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313008948|journal=The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright|pages=123–139|via=ResearchGate}}

Semantic change

In bilingual situations, false friends often result in a semantic change—a real new meaning that is then commonly used in a language. For example, the Portuguese {{Lang|pt|humoroso}} ('capricious') changed its meaning in American Portuguese to 'humorous', owing to the English surface-cognate humorous.{{cite web |url=https://unravellingmag.com/articles/semantic-false-friends/ |title=Semantic False Friends |publisher=Unravel |access-date=21 January 2025}}

The American Italian {{Lang|it|fattoria}} lost its original meaning, "farm", in favor of "factory", owing to the phonetically similar surface-cognate English factory (cf. Standard Italian {{Lang|it|fabbrica}}, 'factory'). Instead of the original {{Lang|it|fattoria}}, the phonetic adaptation American Italian {{Lang|it|farma}} became the new signifier for "farm" (Weinreich 1963: 49; see "one-to-one correlation between signifiers and referents").{{Full citation needed|date=February 2024}}

Due to the closeness between Italian {{Lang|it|terra rossa}} ('red soil') and Portuguese {{Lang|pt|terra roxa}} 'purple soil', Italian farmers in Brazil used {{Lang|pt|terra roxa}} to describe a type of soil similar to the red Mediterranean soil.{{cite web |title=Terra roxa: origens e como cuidar do solo vermelho |url=https://summitagro.estadao.com.br/noticias-do-campo/terra-roxa-origens-e-como-cuidar-do-solo-vermelho/ |website=Canal Agro Estadão |access-date=7 May 2023 |language=pt-BR |date=7 March 2022}} The actual Portuguese word for "red" is {{Lang|pt|vermelha}}. Nevertheless, {{Lang|pt|terra roxa}} and {{Lang|pt|terra vermelha}} are still used interchangeably in Brazilian agriculture.{{cite web |title=Conheça as características da terra roxa ou terra vermelha |url=https://www.canalrural.com.br/noticias/conheca-caracteristicas-terra-roxa-terra-vermelha-53932/ |website=Canal Rural |language=pt-BR |date=13 December 2014}}

Quebec French is also known for shifting the meanings of some words toward those of their English cognates, but such words are considered false friends in European French. For example, {{Lang|fr|éventuellement}} is commonly used as "eventually" in Quebec but means "perhaps" in Europe.

This phenomenon is analyzed by Ghil'ad Zuckermann as "(incestuous) phono-semantic matching".{{cite book |page=102 |first=Ghil'ad |last=Zuckermann |year=2003 |url=http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?is=140391723X |title=Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew |publisher=Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change, Series editor: Charles Jones) |isbn=978-1-4039-1723-2 |access-date=2008-09-17 |archive-date=2014-02-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201235515/http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?is=140391723X |url-status=dead }}

References

External links

wikt:Category:False cognates and false friends on Wiktionary
[http://www.lipczuk.buncic.de/ An online hypertext bibliography on false friends] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070429151908/http://www.lipczuk.buncic.de/ |date=2007-04-29 }}
[http://spanish.about.com/library/weekly/aa101899.htm Spanish/English false friends] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517013843/http://spanish.about.com/library/weekly/aa101899.htm |date=2008-05-17 }}
[http://french.about.com/library/fauxamis/blfauxam_a.htm French/English false friends] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090129173432/http://french.about.com/library/fauxamis/blfauxam_a.htm |date=2009-01-29 }}
[http://www.reference.tjtaylor.net/false-friends/ Italian/English false friends]
[http://falsefriends.ru/ffslovar.htm English/Russian false friends]
[http://www.heardutchhere.net/FalseFriends.html English/Dutch false friends]
LanguageTool support for [https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool/blob/master/languagetool-core/src/main/resources/org/languagetool/rules/false-friends.xml false friends] according to rules in this [http://wiki.languagetool.org/usage-of-false-friends-rule format].
[http://www.tagesspiegel.de/meinung/die-deutschen-und-ihr-englisch-the-devil-lies-in-the-detail/11622894.html Die Deutschen und ihr Englisch. The devil lies in the detail] (tagesspiegel.de, 2015)
[http://www.manager-magazin.de/thema/der_denglische_patient/ Der DEnglische Patient – Kolumne von Peter Littger] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161025100038/http://www.manager-magazin.de/thema/der_denglische_patient/ |date=2016-10-25 }} (Manager Magazin, 2016)

Category:False friends

Category:Error

Category:1920s neologisms

false friend

Definition and origin

Causes

= Shared etymology =

==In loanwords==

==In native words==

= Homonyms =

= Pseudo-anglicisms =

Semantic change

See also

References

External links