Re: Double minimal pairs

On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 5:29 AM, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:

> I found an interesting coincidence as I was working on the Tirelat
> vocabulary: a pair of words that's a minimal pair in both English and
> Tirelat.
>
> żuki ['dzuki] "drain" (n.)
> žuki ['Zuki]  "train" (i.e. railroad train)
>
> How likely is this in unrelated languages? Is it possible that when I went
> to come up with a word for "drain" that the older word for "train" came to
> mind? Or is it just one of those coincidences that's likely to come up with
> a large enough vocabulary?

Don't know about the mathematical probabilities, but I imagine it's very
possible that the older word came to mind. I've caught myself on a number of
occasions recreating a word that I had forgotten about, with the same or
nearly the same form. And sometimes, related words "accidentally" will have
similar forms. It may be because I remember some older words subconsciously,
or perhaps whatever associations made me choose the original form are still
active.


> Does anyone have examples of minimal pairs like this from their own
> languages (which translate to minimal pairs in an unrelated language)? Now
> I'll have to see if I've got any other examples of this.
>
Josh Roth

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