I'm looking for a term my professor used to use for "convergent words." What do you call a word that uses roots with similar meanings to form the same concept across two languages? (either by chance or direct-translation)
No, not a cognant. A cognant would be a word that just plain comes from the same origin, and therefore is similar across two languages, like the English/Spanish pairing of "circumstance/circunstancia."
What I'm talking about is more like the English/Russian pairing of "circumstance/обстоятельства*," where "об-" means roughly "circum/around" and "стоят" means roughly "stand." Also there's "crosswalk/переход*" where "пере-" is roughly "across" and "ход" is roughly "go/walk." The roots have the same meanings, but different origins.
Wiktionary says that in Brasilian-Portuguese a "computer mouse" is called a "mouse," as a cognant with the English. However, in Portugal, a native translation with the same concept as in English (rodent) is used, "rato." What would "rato" be?
I know there's a bit of jargon to describe these "convergent" words, what is it?
*, for the sounder-outers:
обстоятельства = "obstoyatel'stva"
переход = "perekhod"
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(Also, it's cognate, not cognant.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:55 AM on December 10, 2007