Words in other languages.

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Or more specifically those that sound the same but mean different things.

I was having a conversation about words that sound the same but mean different things depending on the context. There is a lot in the British language, eg There, their, hour, our, here, hear, mine (belonging to me, a deep pit, an exposive device) mean (the implication of, being nasty)

I'm guessing this isn't a purely English phenomena (sp?) but how widespread is it in other tongues?

 

From what I have heard English has a lot more homonyms than just about any other language but I imagine that just about every language does have some of them.

 

Thanks JSBB, I couln't recall the word "Homonym".

Just to clarify, if folks could provide examples please...

 

Its not very common in Irish Gaelic either.

 

This kind of words exist in greek as well. Few examples from the top of my mind:
apodeiksi - receipt, proof
thira/thyra - hunting/gate
monos - alone, single

 

Actually I just though of some:

Geas, Geis, Geasa - a binding spell
Dinnsenchas/Dindsenchas - how a place is named

 

Just a few examples in Dutch:

Homonyms
Lijst - frame/list
Blad - a sheet of paper/a leaf
Pad - toad/path
Vorst - the ruler of a country, like a king or emperor/freezing temperatures
Hagel - hail (as in the chunks of ice that fall from the sky)/something we eat on our bread (often made of chocolate)
Bril - toilet seat/glasses
Kater - a male cat/a hangover
Weg - gone/road
Bank - couch/bank
Mijn - mine/mine/mine

Homophones
Krab/Krap - crab/thight
Eis/IJs - a demand/ice
Zei/Zij - a verb, it's the past tense of 'to say'/she

 

I'm sure the Finnish language and I'm not very good at comming up with these but I'll put forth a few.

Kuusi = the number six/ I'm awful at remembering trees in english so kuusi would be the kind of tree people have as their christmas trees

juuri = a root/or an expression for "just happened"

 

I'll add some more:

bal: prom/ball
schot: shot/Scot
bot: blunt/bone/sort of fish
vleugel: wing, piano
toets: test/key (piano, keyboard)
arm: arm/poor

...

Pretty common in Dutch as well.

 

In Cantonese, just changing the tone of how you say a word gives you different words. The classic example is "ma." It could mean:

ma ma (higher pitch): mother
ma ma (lower pitch): grandmother
ma: eh? (if used at end of sentence)
ma (sort of nasal sounding): horse
ma-ma (lowish tone?): so-so

Almost every word can become another word just by changing the tone/emphasis/accent of how it is pronounced. That's why we need pronounciation guides (pin yin - which I don't know) along with "spelling" (strokes for writing characters I suppose).

 

They are pretty common in Croatian.

My favourite:

gore - mountains, up, they burn, worse.

 

Well, in spanish there are not, because we 'read' letters with just one pronunciation: a as in classic, and that's it, no other pronunciation, the same for the others.
We always say that english is too complicated because the variations on pronunciations in just one letter.

 

Yeah, they are very common in Turkish too.

weirdest one (for me at least):

koyun: sheep/put

 

In polish - word 'fart' means luck... ...There was an interesting story about music band of that name, that wanted to make a tournee across western Europe and USA... ...

 

In French Homonyms and Homophones are quite commons.

A couple exemple

Homophones

ver / vert / verre - worm/green/a glass (like a glass of ale)
dans / dent - into / teet
a/à - have past tence / to
ou / où - or / where
les / laid / lait - the (plurial) / ugly / milk
tous / tout - all / all
I know it sound crazy but their is a difference, but they still both mean all and the are pronounced the same way. I not good enough to explain the difference though

 

Tell me about it! My mother is Chinese and wants my son to call her "Ma ma" for grandmother and she has been trying to explain how this is different from the "Ma ma" for mother and I can't hear a difference at all. Must be damned confusing for Cantonese kids, especially little ones when they are learning to talk and call their mother "mumumumumumum".

 

I hate it when people confuse "your" with "you're", "have" with "of" and "their" with "they're". I hate it. I can't stand it.

 

Aaargh. "Have" vs "Of" is my latest pet hate. This time, I agree with you Chev.

 

Now just a minute here, it depends on your accent. You, Chev are obviously a filthy yankee who says pop instead of drink and other foolishness like that where as we eddicated rednecks down here are far more down to earth with our speech. We're like cave men, I guess, short and to the point. And often incomprehensible, but what can you do? When I say have it sounds like of, well, not completely accurate more like would've sounds like would of. What's it supposed to sound like, would vuh? I hate the your/you're thing, I see it all the time.

pee can and pecan- a toilet and a nut
fan and fan- keeps you cool, or groupie
back and back- your back and you're back as in returned
or and oar
have and halve- accepted in the South, "halve that melon o'er yonder"
down and down- opposite of up, soft feathers, to drink
combine and combine- put together, a machine

 

I'm struggling to see how those two could ever sound the same......