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A pair of false cognates consists of two words in different languages that appear to be or are sometimes considered cognates when they're really not. Note that there could be an indirect connection between them; however, only words sharing a common root can be considered real cognates.

For example, the word for "dog" in the Australian Aboriginal language Mbabaram happens to be dog, although there is no common ancestor or other connection between that language and English (the Mbabaram word evolved regularly from a protolinguistic form guduga). Similarly, the Korean word manhi (an adverb meaning "plentifully") resembles the English "many" and in the Japanese language the word 'to occur' happens to be okoru.

False cognates are particularly common in core or common vocabulary, as shown by this last example. Such cognates often occur in kinship terms ( !Kung ba and French papa (both "father"); or Navajo má, Chinese mā, and English "mother") or in numbers (Korean tu and English "two").

The term "false cognate" is sometimes misused to describe a false friend. The difference between a false cognate and a false friend is that while a false cognate means roughly the same thing in two languages, a false friend is completely unrelated, and may even, purely by chance, mean the opposite, as Welsh ie = "yes" and Japanese iie = "no").

Topics: False Cognate, False Document, False Claims Law, False Friend...

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False cognateA pair of false cognates consists of two words in different languages that appear to be or are sometimes considered cognates when they're really not. Note that there could be an indirect connection between them; however, only words sharing a common root c	False dilemmaThe logical fallacy of false dilemma also known as fallacy of the excluded middle false dichotomy either/or dilemma or bifurcation is to set up two alternative points of view as if they were the only options, when they are not. Examples Either creationism	False clockIn telecommunication, a false clock is a condition where a phase-locked loop controlling a clock locks on a frequency other than the correct frequency. Note 1: False clock can occur when there is excessive phase shift, as a function of frequency, in the l
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Topics: False Cognate, False Document, False Claims Law, False Friend...