False cognates thread

[fusijui]

Manchu šun, Ulch and Udihe su(n) etc.
English sun

[Vijay]

There's always the classic examples from linguistic literature: English dog and Mbabaram dog, English mess and Kaqchikel mes, English bad and Persian بد bad...

[Moose-tache]

Korean Surname: 박 (Bak), usually rendered into English as "Park", but meaning "gourd"

Yeah, no. The surname is derived from Chinese 朴 “simple, naïve” and has nothing at all to do with the native word for “gourd”.

The Korean-American author Linda Sue Park has "Bak" as her last name, and as you say the bak here does not mean gourd. But it does make for a nice pun, because subak is the Korean word for watermelon. This proved enormously funny to my Korean students years ago.

[Otto Kretschmer]

In Ancient Rome parents would tell their kids that Hannibal is going to come and eat them so I thought that Hannibal is the origin of modern cannibal. It is not.

[Kuchigakatai]

Korean 어제 eoje [ʌ̹dʑe̞ ] 'yesterday'
Spanish ayer [aˈʝeɾ] (pronounced [aˈɟʝeɾ] in Bogotá Spanish) 'yesterday'

[Vijay]

Romani daj 'mother'
Tamil தாய [ˈt̪aːja] 'mother'

[Kuchigakatai]

Irish mac 'son'
Malayalam മകൻ makan 'son'
Tamil மகன் makaṉ 'son'

Tagalog anak 'son'
Inuktitut ᐃᕐᓂᖅ irniq 'son'
Greenlandic erneq 'son'

[Vijay]

Anak in Tagalog means '(someone's) child', not specifically 'son'. If specification is needed, 'son' is anak na lalaki (male child), and 'daughter' is anak na babae (female child).

Apparently, [ba] in Thai means something like 'come on/along!'. It means the same in Malayalam as well.

[Kuchigakatai]

Anak in Tagalog means '(someone's) child', not specifically 'son'. If specification is needed, 'son' is anak na lalaki (male child), and 'daughter' is anak na babae (female child).

Ah, thanks!

Meanwhile among "daughter" words:

Modern Hebrew בַּת bat 'daughter; girl'
Hindi-Urdu बेटी / بیٹی‎ beṭī 'daughter'

Akkadian mārtu 'daughter'
Welsh merch 'girl, daughter'

I feel Wiktionary makes finding examples of false cognates a lot easier with its "Translations" section of English entries, but you have to pay attention...

[Vijay]

Spanish mesa 'table'
Arabic مائدة māʾida 'dining table'

[Kuchigakatai]

Japanese 魔法 mahō (from Middle Chinese mwa-pjop) 'magic'
Spanish magia /ˈmaxja/ 'magic'

[Nortaneous]

barley ~ Korean bori "barley"

[Otto Kretschmer]

Polish cnota (a virtue)
Hebrew tzniut (modesty)

[elgis]

Hello/goodbye
Italian ciao /ˈt͡ʃa.o/
Vietnamese chào [t͡ɕaːw˨˩]

Hello
Estonian tere /ˈtere/
Ancient Greek χαῖρε /ˈçe.re/

Finnish moi /ˈmoi̯/
German moin /mɔːɪn/

This one might be a stretch:
Port/harbour
German Hafen /ˈhaːfn̩/
Korean 해항 [ˈhɛ(ː)ɦa̠ŋ]

[Linguoboy]

Gothic: *𐌰𐌽𐍃 ans god
Svan: ანს ans god

(The Gothic form has also been reconstructed as *𐌰𐌽𐍃𐌿𐍃 on the basis of Proto-Germanic *ansuz.)

[Lior_C]

מרכז: Center in hebrew (merkaz)
Mercado: Spanish for market

[vlad]

Nahuatl canauhtli "duck"
French canard "duck"

[Lior_C]

כיתה : "Classroom" in Hebrew(kitah).
Quita: "Take this out" in Spanish.

[WeepingElf]

כיתה : "Classroom" in Hebrew(kitah).
Quita: "Take this out" in Spanish.

German Kita (< Kindertagesstätte) 'day care' springs to my mind here. Of course, a day care is not a classroom either, but reasonably close.

[Lior_C]

כיתה : "Classroom" in Hebrew(kitah).
Quita: "Take this out" in Spanish.

German Kita (< Kindertagesstätte) 'day care' springs to my mind here. Of course, a day care is not a classroom either, but reasonably close.

That's interesting. I guess it's used as slang, informally.