Cognates: Lesson
Topic 1: Cognates
Read the following lesson, which expands upon the information presented in the video, to solidify your understanding of the topic.
German and English Vocabulary
Here is some good news:
German and English belong to the same branch of the Indo-European language family. This branch is called Germanic. Dutch, the Scandinavian languages, Flemish, Yiddish, and Afrikaans also belong to the Germanic languages. German developed its own identity as a distinguishable language relatively recently, not much earlier than around 800.
When German grew apart from the other Germanic languages, it did not develop immediately into a standardized language, but rather took the form of many regional dialects, often considerably different from each other. Until the late 19th century, most Germans only spoke dialects, because until the late national unification in 1871, Germany was divided into many smaller states. Today, Hochdeutsch (High German) is used by most German speakers outside the families and circles of close friends.
Since English and German are 'relatives', they share a considerable amount of structural similarities and vocabulary. German and English words which are recognizably related are called cognates; some are spelled identically in both languages (e.g. die Hand, der Arm, der Finger) while others are merely similar (e.g. der Vater, die Mutter, das Haus). Often, however, cognates have acquired different meanings in the different languages.
If you study the differences between similar words in English and German closely you will make an interesting discovery. Certain consonants in an English word can be consistently replaced with a particular other consonant to make the related German word. Have a look at the following group of German and English words:
English t at the beginning and the end of a word (or after a consonant) turns into a z/tz (ts) in German.
| ten | zehn |
| tell | er-zählen |
| tidings | Zeitung |
| to | zu |
| salt | Salz |
| heart | Herz |
| heat | Hitze |
| wit |
Witz |
English t between vowels turns into ss/ß in German.
|
water |
Wasser |
| white | weiß |
| hate | hassen, Haß |
English p at the beginning of a word or pp turns into pf in German.
| pan | Pfanne |
| pound | Pfund |
| penny | Pfennig |
| pipe | Pfeife |
| apple | Apfel |
English p at the end of a word or between vowels or soft consonants turns f or ff in German.
| ship | Schiff |
| help | helfen |
| ape | Affe |
| pipe | Pfeife |
| deep | tief |
English k turns into German ch.
| book | Buch |
| make | machen |
| cake | Kuchen |
English d turns into t in German.
| bed | Bett |
| dance | Tanz |
| deep | tief |
| death | Tod |
English th turns into d in German
| death | Tod |
| bath | Bad |
| thank | danken |
| then | dann |
| that | dass |
If you become very familiar with these changes, you can almost guess or derive the German word from its English equivalent. But be careful, the meaning may have changed!
Look again at the list of words above, and this time look at the vowels. The "short" vowels are often the same (bath-Bad; ship-Schiff) but the "long" vowels and dipthongs are usually different in the spellings English and German have evolved. However, the sounds of the long vowels or dipthongs are often actually the same: the vowels in deep and tief, white and weiß, sound about the same.