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Cognate Connections
November 28,2004
My high school German teacher, Roger Gould, was the first one to introduce me to the concept of cognates. As a young teen I would listen enthralled as he would establish links between the German words we were learning and their English cousins. German and English, both being Germanic languages, provided a rich field to mine and his method furnished the opportunity for the student, struggling with the newness of it all, to create “hooks” on which to hang these strange sounding words. I’ve been an addict ever since.
Linguistics has moved steadfastly away from the philology of the 19th century, with its focus on language types and etymologies, to more rigidly scientific pursuits. Yet for me these issues still count and the recognition of an unlikely cognate is still accompanied by a frisson of discovery. How many years did I use the Japanese word danna (one of the words for “husband”) until a Thai-speaking friend alerted me to its Sanskrit origin?
Cognates connect. They are powerful memory tools for the language student and a source of delight for the language lover.
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