Rate of Change

[Ante Aikio]

[Steve Long:]
>I would suspect that "found" cognates that truly have no recognizable
>resemblances are rare.

[Joat Simeon:]
> -- well, you're wrong there.

(snip of list of examples from IE)

It is true that found cognates with little or no phonological similarity
are very common. Just a while ago, Larry brought up sound changes in some
Pama-Nyungan languages, which, as far as I understand, have quite
effectively eradicated all surface similarity from most of the cognate
words. But this thread is a perfect excuse to list my ten favorite
examples from Uralic. ;-) So here goes:

PU *jïNsi 'bow'
Sami /juoksa/
Hungarian /íj/
Nenets /nginº/

PU *wixti 'five or ten'
Finnish /viisi/ '5'
H. /öt/ '5'
N. /yuq/ '10'

PU *SiNiri 'mouse'
F. /hiiri/
H. /egér/

PU *widimi 'marrow'
F. /ydin/
H. /velöö/

PU *sexji 'pus'
S. /siet´t´a/
H. /év/
N. /tyím-/

PU *kulki- 'go, flow'
F. /kulke-/
N. /xæ-/

PU *weti 'water'
F. /vesi/
N. /yiq/

PU *ulki 'pole'
S. /holka/
N. /ngú/

PU *wajNi 'breath, spirit'
S. /vuojNa/
N. /yíntºq/

PU *käxli 'tongue'
S. /kiella/
N. (Forest) /sye/

etc.

These examples are not at all untypical. I once compiled a list of all the
cognate words between North Sami and Tundra Nenets (there are not very
many of them, less than 100). At least about half of the Sami words hardly
resembled their Nenets cognates at all.

 - Ante Aikio