cognates
Words sharing ancestry
Cognates are words in different languages that share a common ancestor.
English *mother*, German *Mutter*, and Latin *mater* are cognates—all descended from the same Proto-Indo-European root.
The term also applies within a single language to words from the same root: *regal* and *royal* are English cognates, both from Latin *rex*.
In casual use, cognate can mean related or analogous: The two approaches are cognate.
Original word form
- proto-languageReconstructed common ancestor tongue
- reconstructionRebuilding after destruction
- philologyStudy of historical texts
- diachronicConcerning change over time
loanword · borrowing · morpheme · root · derivation · doublet · calque · lexeme
Exchanged written communication
- parallelEquidistant at all points
- equivalentSame in value or function
- analogueSomething functionally similar
- counterpartCorresponding person or thing
resemblance · affinity · likeness · homology · common ancestor · matching · twin · akin
Vast language family
- Romance languagesLatin-derived language family
- Slavic languagesEastern European language family
- SanskritAncient Indo-Aryan language
- LatinAncient Roman language
Greek · language family · sister languages · Semitic · Dravidian · Austronesian · Celtic languages · Finno-Ugric
etymon
Original word form
- proto-languageReconstructed common ancestor tongue
- reconstructionRebuilding after destruction
- philologyStudy of historical texts
diachronic · loanword · borrowing · morpheme · root · derivation · doublet · calque · lexeme · word origin
correspondence
Exchanged written communication
- parallelEquidistant at all points
- equivalentSame in value or function
- analogueSomething functionally similar
counterpart · resemblance · affinity · likeness · homology · common ancestor · matching · twin · akin · congruence
Indo-European
Vast language family
- Romance languagesLatin-derived language family
- Slavic languagesEastern European language family
- SanskritAncient Indo-Aryan language
Latin · Greek · language family · sister languages · Semitic · Dravidian · Austronesian · Celtic languages · Finno-Ugric · Sino-Tibetan
- Romance linguisticsRomance languages, Gallo-Romance, Italian, Spanish, Latin roots
- languagelanguage, word, words, grammar, spelling
- vocabularyword, words, new words, term, terms
- DutchDutch, Holland, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Rotterdam
- other languages Q&Atranslation, vocabulary, grammar, phrases, pronunciation
- Spanish learningvocabulary, grammar, verbs, nouns, adjectives