Re: conlang/natlang coincidences

Herman:
> michael poxon wrote:
>
> > Has anyone found coincidences across languages - for instance the Omeina
> > suffix -eta (signifying a collecion of related objects, for instance
> > ilma "bright star" > ilmeta "constellation (especially a notable one)".
> > Not only is the suffix phonemically the same as the Basque suffix -eta,
> > but means the same as well!
> > Mike
>
> There's no shortage of accidental resemblances -- Mbabaram "dog" =
> English "dog" is one of the more notable ones. Then there's Tongan
> "mate" = Arabic "maat" ("die"), Tongan "fefine" = Latin "femina"
> ("woman"). As far as conlangs, the Tilya word "z^anc^a" [ZantSa] happens
> to have the same meaning as the Lojban word "jansu" [Zansu] (diplomat,
> ambassador), although like most basic Tilya roots it was randomly
> generated. "Kiv", one of the few randomly generated Tirelat words that
> have survived, coincidentally means "cave". But my favorite coincidence
> is the word for "language" in many of my languages (most recently
> Jarda): "tal", which happens (entirely coincidentally) to sound like the
> Dutch word for language, "taal".
By coincidence, the Livagian word for language is _lanq_ [laN] -- i.e.
'lang'! (The native name for Livagian is _lylanq_ which translates
as 'uslang' or 'nostratic'.)

--And.