Russian word for "cognate"

[Gregg Opelka]

On Fri, 10 Mar 1995 14:42:48 EST Loren Allen Billings said:


I don't know how people speak on the east coast, but in the midwest the
primary meaning of collaborate is still and always has been "to work
together," from its Latin roots cum + laborare. Are you perhaps
confusing this with collusion?

>Let's (we linguists) not ignore the "real" meaning of cognate.  In
>everyday language this word means "from the same source (be it via some
>borrowing)".  It's amazing how many linguistic terms have a purist
>meaning and a popular one.  Three that come to mind are _informant_,
>_collaborate/collaborator_ and _linguist_ itself.
>
>There was a lively discussion on the LINGUIST list recently about the
>word _informant_.  One subcriber, who does field work in Liberia, as I
>recall, would never use that word there because of it's meaning of
>"infomer" (i.e., CIA collaborator; see below).
>
>Speaking of which, when we work with a colleague on a project or
>publication (something that happens far too rarely, in my opinion, in
>our field), we are said to _collaborate_.  And this is not necessarily
>just a term linguists use, but all academic disciplines in which this
>happens.  Still, the every-day use is akin to _commit treason_.
>
>Finally, the term _linguist_ itself.  Especially in the military (the
>same organization that referred to getting payed twice a month as the
>"bi-monthly pay option"), but even generally in the public, a linguist
>is someone who works with languages (yes the plural, usually).  Is it
>the case that just linguists have such dualities of meanings (not to
>mention jargon terms like _government_, _binding_, etc.)?  I'd be happy
>to hear what y'all think.  --Loren Billings (billings at princeton.edu)


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