The cognates They are words that share the same etymological origin (birth and evolution), but at the same time their changes at the phonetic level have been different. According to the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), a cognate is a word that is related, related or linked to another due to its form.
Now, regarding the etymological origin of the word cognate, it is known that it comes from the Latin term cognatus, which comes to mean "words with a similar ancestor" or "of similar birth". Cognates can be presented in two different languages, and they are related by having similar spelling, pronunciation, and meanings..
Cognates that occur in the same language are called doublets. A case of this type is the one represented by the words "full" and "full", which originate from the Latin plenu.
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Cognates are characterized by the following aspects:
- They have the same birth and etymological evolution, however, throughout linguistic history they have had phonetic variations.
- Cognates are words from two different languages that are similar in pronunciation and spelling. Besides this, its meaning is the same.
- This phenomenon within linguistics is also known under true cognate names or transparent words. This is due to the link and kinship they have with the same etymological ancestor.
- Cognates are often used by language teachers for their students to create links between different languages and learn more easily.
- There is a variant within cognates called doublets. These include those words that belong to the same language and that share their etymological origin.
Just as there are true cognates, there are also false ones. These are represented by those words belonging to different languages that may have a certain similarity in phonetics and spelling, but are not related in terms of their origin or their meaning evolved in a totally different way.
A clear example is represented by the words “arma” (Spanish) and arm (English). At first glance it seems that they are related, but nothing could be further from the truth. "Weapon" in Spanish refers to an object that can be used to defend or attack, while arm means "arm".
Within the cognates are the so-called "perfect cognates". They share exactly their spelling in both languages. Among the most common examples in English and Spanish we have: Actor, admirable, agenda, alcohol, altar, animal, area, artificial, auto, balance, banana, bar, base, brutal, cable, coffee, channel, cancer, canon, capital.
The only differences present between the words in both languages are the variants in pronunciation and the presence of accents typical of the Spanish language. These are the preferred cognates for teaching English-Spanish and vice versa.
- Abstraction - abstraction.
- Action - action.
- Adaptation - adaptation.
- Adoption - adoption.
- Admiration - admiration.
- Association - association.
- Actor - actor.
- Admirable - admirable.
- Agenda - agenda.
- Alcohol - alcohol.
- Altar - altar.
- Animal - animal.
- Area - area.
- Artificial - artificial.
- Auto - auto.
- Analyze - analyze.
- Angel Angel.
- Art - art.
- Artistic - artistic.
- Adversary - adversary.
- Anniversary - anniversary.
- Arbitrary - arbitrary.
- Academic - academic.
- Acrobatic - acrobatic.
- Alcoholic - alcoholic.
- Allergic - allergic.
- Arithmetic - arithmetic.
- Authentic - authentic.
- Automatic - automatic.
- Artifact - artifact.
- Balance - balance.
- Banana - banana.
- Bar - bar.
- Base - base.
- Brutal - brutal.
- Bank - bank.
- Bus - bus.
- Basic - basic.
- Cable - cable.
- Car - car.
- Channel - channel.
- Cancer - cancer.
- Central - central.
- Celebration - celebration.
- Civilization - civilization.
- Chocolate Chocolate.
- Club - club.
- Combustion - combustion.
- Collection - collection.
- Combine - combine.
- Composition - composition.
- Concentration - concetration.
- Condition - condition.
- Conservation - conservation.
- Consideration - consideration.
- Constellation - constellation.
- Constitution - constitution.
- Construction - construction.
- Contribution - contribution.
- Cooperation - cooperation.
- Conclusion - conclusion.
- Concert - concert.
- Criminal - criminal.
- Culture - culture.
- Curious - curious.
- Comment - commentary.
- Complementary - complementary.
- Conterio - contrary.
- Ceramic - ceramic.
- Characteristic - characteristic.
- Classic - classic.
- Conflict - conflict.
- Contact - contac.
- Contagious - contagious.
- Compact - campact.
- Science - science.
- Decoration - decoration.
- Description - description.
- Determination - determination.
- Discrimination - discrimination.
- Direction - direction.
- Delicate - delicate.
- Detail - detail.
- Director - Director.
- Doctor Doctor.
- Distance - distance.
- Divide - divide.
- Diary - diary.
- Democratic - democratic.
- Dynamic - dynamic.
- Diplomatic - diplomatic.
- Domestic - domestic.
- Dramatic - dramatic.
- Delicious - delicious.
- Huge - enormous.
- Essential - essential.
- Excellent - excellent.
- Exhibition - exposition.
- Exclamation - exclamation.
- Exclusive - exclusive.
- Express - express.
- Extreme - extreme.
- Economic - economic.
- Electric - electric.
- Erotic - erotic.
- Exotic - exotic.
- Special - special.
- Structure - structure.
- Exact - exact.
- Extract - extract.
- Factor - factor.
- Family - family.
- Fantastic - fantastic.
- Fiction - fiction.
- Training - formation.
- Famous - famous.
- Furious - furious.
- Photo - photo.
- Famous - famous.
- Furious - furious.
- Glorious - glorious.
- General - general.
- Guide - guide.
- Glossary - Glossary.
- Generic - generic.
- Genetic - genetic.
- Geometric - geometric.
- Hospital - hospital.
- Hotel - hotel.
- Heroic - heroic.
- Historic - historic.
- Important - important.
- Identification - identification.
- Information - information.
- Inspection - inspection.
- Interruption - interruption.
- Introduction - introduction.
- Investigation - investigation.
- Invitation - invitation.
- Individual - individual.
- Infinite - infinite.
- Interactive - interactive.
- Invention - invection.
- Illusion - illusion.
- Island - isle.
- Ironic - ironic.
- Impact - impact.
- Insect - insect.
- Letter - letter.
- Lion - lion.
- Machine - machine.
- Material - material.
- Melody - melody.
- Memory - memory.
- Miserable - miserable.
- Moment - moment.
- Music - music.
- Mercenary - mercenary.
- Magic - magic.
- Doctor - medic.
- Mosaic - mosaic.
- Mysterious - mysterious.
- Nervous - nervous.
- Numerous - numerous.
- Nation - nation.
- Natural - natural.
- Necessity - necessity.
- Nostalgic - nostalgic.
- Note - note.
- Organic - organic.
- Objective - objetive.
- Objection - objection.
- Operation - operation.
- Ocean - ocean.
- Opinion - opinion.
- Option - option.
- Order - order.
- Original - original.
- Ordinary - ordinary.
- Paper - paper.
- Park - park.
- Personal - personal.
- Primary - primary.
- Panic - panic.
- Plastic - plastic.
- Poetic - poetic.
- Public - public.
- Pine - pine.
- Plant - plant.
- Possibility - possibility.
- Possible - possible.
- President - president.
- Problem - problem.
- Project - project.
- Promote - promote.
- Public - public.
- Product - product.
- Precious - precious.
- Religious - religious.
- Radio - radio.
- Real - real.
- Reason - reason.
- Receive - receive.
- Reduce - reduce.
- Relationship - relation.
- Repeat - repeat.
- Reservation - reservation.
- Restaurant - restaurant.
- Romantic - romantic.
- Pink - rose.
- Route - route.
- Revolutionary - revolucionary.
- Rosario - rosary.
- Secret - secret.
- Sex - sex.
- Sensation - sensation.
- Silence - silence.
- Simplification - simplification.
- Secretary - secretary.
- Systematic - systematic.
- Telephone - telephone.
- Television - television.
- Terrible - terrible.
- Traffic - traffic.
- Tragic - tragic.
- Tedious - tedious.
- Tesseract - tesseract.
- Urgent - urgent.
- Usual - usual.
- Vacation - vacation.
- Verb - verb.
- Violence - violence.
- Violent - violent.
- Visit - visit.
- Victory - victory.
- Vocabulary - vocabulary.
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