Re: conlang/natlang coincidences

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".

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