# Twin



## dihydrogen monoxide

I'm looking for languages  for which the word twin doesn't have the number two as a root. Meaning word for twin in your languages that has nothing to do with number two.


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## Outsider

I think that Latin and the Romance languages qualify.

In Portuguese:

two: _dois_ (m), _duas_ (f)
twin: _gémeo_/_gêmeo_ (m), _gémea_/_gêmea_ (f)

In French:

two: _deux_
twin: _jumeau_ (m), _jumelle_ (f)


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## sayah

Yeah. In Spanish it's the same:

two: dos

Twin: gemelo / gemela

Sayah


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## valo__fan

Yeah in Turkish too;
Twin:İkizler(iki means two)


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## kusurija

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> I'm looking for languages for which the word twin doesn't have the number two as a root. Meaning word for twin in your languages that has nothing to do with number two.


What about _gemini_ in English?
Gemini = blíženci(Czech)


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## Outsider

kusurija said:


> What about _gemini_ in English?


_Gemini_ is a loan from Latin, and it's only used for the astrological sign.


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## Mjolnir

*Hebrew*:
Two - שתיים (_shtaim_)
Twin - תאום (_teom_).


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## federicoft

In Italian, not differently from other Romance languages obviously:

two - due
twin - gemello

_Gemello_ comes from Latin _geminus_, which means 'identical'.


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## elroy

Arabic, like Hebrew, qualifies:

two: إثنان (_ithnaan_)
twin: توأم (_taw'am_)


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## Saluton

Russian:
two = два (dva)
twin = близнец (blizn*e*ts); the constellation is also called Близнецы (Bliznets*y*, i.e. Twins).


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## atiman

valo__fan said:


> Yeah in Turkish too;
> Twin:İkizler(iki means two)


 
I think you mean Turkish does not qualifies... :d
ps: twin:ikiz 
not ikizler


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## Dr. Quizá

In Spanish we have two words: "Gemelos" and "mellizos". Both have the same meaning although usually "gemelos" are used for identical twins and "mellizos" for the non-identical ones. Also, they have the same root, so if one in not related to two ("dos") neither is the other.


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## jana.bo99

Hi dihydrogen monoxide,

You could write it in Croatian: 

Two - dva
Twin - blizanci.

Slovenian: 

Two -  dve (only two): two - dva (normally)
Twin - dvojćka

German: 

Two -  zwei
Twin - Zwillinge (die Zwillinge)


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## OldAvatar

Outsider said:


> I think that Latin and the Romance languages qualify.



Not available for Romanian. In Romanian it is only _gemeni, _no matter the number of them. From Latin *gemini*.

Of course, modern Romanian has _tripleţi_, _cvadrupleţi _etc. for defining the number of twins, but these are loanwords.


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## Encolpius

Very interesting

*Hungarian*: iker [now no relation with two, but originally 1000 years ago there was, Turkish iki, eki]


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## AutumnOwl

In both _Swedish_ and _Finnish_ the words for two and twin are connected.


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## arielipi

Hebrew:
תאומים teomim is twin
שתיים שניים shtayim or shnayim is two.


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## apmoy70

In Greek:

*«Δίδυμος, -μη, -μο» ['ðiðimos] (masc.), ['ðiðimi] (fem.), ['ðiðimo] (neut.) * (sing.) --> _twin_
*«Δίδυμοι, -μες, μα» ['ðiðimi] (masc.) ['ðiðimes] (fem.), ['ðiðima] (neut.)* (pl.) --> _twins_
The Constellation _Gemini_, is *«Δίδυμοι» ['ðiðimi]*.

Adj. *«δίδυμος» ['ðiðimos]* < Classical *«δίδυμος» dídumŏs* & poetic *«διδυμάων» dĭdŭmáōn* < compound, word-forming element meaning _two, twice, double_, *«δί-» dí-*, from numeral *«δύο» dúŏ* --> _two_ (PIE *dwo-, _two_) + thematic form of «δύο», *«δυ-» du-* + productive suffix *«-μος, -μη, -μον» -mŏs (masc.), -mē (fem.), - mŏn (neut.)*


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## AquisM

Mmm... Not sure how Chinese would be viewed here, since in Chinese _twins_ are associated with the idea of _pair_, which I supposed is related to two, but not exactly. Anyway you decide whether or not it fits.

二 (Mandarin: er; Cantonese: yi) - two
两 (Mandain: liang; Cantonese: loeng) - two (measure word - we would count with 二 but say 两杯水 - two cups of water)

双胞胎 (Mandarin: shuang bao tai; Cantonese: soeng baau toi) - twins (双 means pair)
孖生仔 (Cantonese: maa saang zai - dialectal) - twins (孖 is a dialectal word for pair)


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## mataripis

In Tagalog; Two is Dalawa, Pair is "Tambalan" and twin is "Kambal.


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## Penyafort

Catalan differs here from the rest of the Romance languages by not using a word derived from GEMELLU, but the word *bessó *(*bessons *in the plural). For a Catalan speaker, it is not linguistically related to the word 'two' (which is *dos/dues*), but the two theories about the origin of the word point towards it: a Latin form *bissone, from _bis _'twice', and a pre-Roman form *bikione/bekione, based on either Basque 'two' or an Indo-European word for 'pair, couple'.


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## ilocas2

> *Hungarian*: iker [now no relation with two, but originally 1000 years ago there was, Turkish iki, eki]



Is it related to Spanish name Iker?


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## SuperXW

AquisM said:


> Mmm... Not sure how Chinese would be viewed here, since in Chinese _twins_ are associated with the idea of _pair_, which I supposed is related to two, but not exactly. Anyway you decide whether or not it fits.
> 
> 双胞胎 (Mandarin: shuang bao tai; Cantonese: soeng baau toi) - twins (双 means pair)
> 孖生仔 (Cantonese: maa saang zai - dialectal) - twins (孖 is a dialectal word for pair)


Another formal word in Chinese is 孪生子 (孿生子). 孪 itself contains the meaning of "twin".


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## 810senior

Japanese terms are simply associated with numbers such as one, two, three...

一人っ子hitorikko: only child (hitori=one person, kko=child)
双子futago: twin (futa=two, go=child)
三つ子mitsugo: triplet (mitsu=three)
四つ子yotsugo: quadruplet (yotsu=four)

P.S
I have come up with another translation for it: 双生児(sou-sei-ji, an infant born together): sou means a pair, sei means to be born and ji means an infant.


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## mundiya

In Hindi it's जुड़वाँ (juRvaaN).


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## Messquito

AquisM said:


> 双胞胎 (Mandarin: shuang bao tai; Cantonese: soeng baau toi) - twins (双 means pair)


I would like to add, in case somebody don't know, that 雙胞胎 can be also the name of a food in Taiwan.
A 雙胞胎 is two round-shaped bread sticking together; that's why it's called 雙胞胎。
So next time, don't be freaked out and give a you-are-a-barbarian look if someone says "我們去吃雙胞胎吧！"


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## 810senior

I should add something to my original post: the pronunciation of 双生児(twin) and ソーセージ(sausage) is same in Japanese(even in English), it sounds a bit funny.


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## ilocas2

> the pronunciation of 双生児(twin) and ソーセージ(sausage) is same in Japanese(even in English), it sounds a bit funny.



In Czech *párek* means _pair_ (diminutive) and _sausage_


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## SuperXW

It seems twins are always delicious...


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## AndrasBP

Encolpius said:


> *Hungarian*: iker [now no relation with two, but originally 1000 years ago there was, Turkish iki, eki]





ilocas2 said:


> Is it related to Spanish name Iker?


No, the Spanish name *Iker *is actually Basque (not a "natural" name, but one created by Basque writer and nationalist Sabino Arana).
I don't know if it means anything in Basque.
The Hungarian word "*iker*" is a loanword from an old Turkic language.

.

The Scottish Gaelic word for "twin" is "*leth-aon*", which literally means "*half-one*". 
Welsh "*gefell*" is borrowed from Latin _gemellus_.


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## Nanon

Penyafort said:


> Catalan differs here from the rest of the Romance languages by not using a word derived from GEMELLU, but the word *bessó *(*bessons *in the plural). For a Catalan speaker, it is not linguistically related to the word 'two' (which is *dos/dues*), but the two theories about the origin of the word point towards it: a Latin form *bissone, from _bis _'twice', and a pre-Roman form *bikione/bekione, based on either Basque 'two' or an Indo-European word for 'pair, couple'.


Occitan also has _besson _(nm) / _bessona _(nf).
_Besson _(nm) / _bessonne _(nf) exists in French too, but it is rare and dated. You may come across this word in George Sand's rural novels (XIX century).


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## AndrasBP

Nanon said:


> _Besson _(nm) / _bessonne _(nf) exists in French too, but it is rare and dated. You may come across this word in George Sand's rural novels (XIX century).


And it still exists as a surname, e.g. Luc *Besson*.


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## Delvo

In Old Norse, the first god, from whom all other gods and even the Earth came, was named Ýmir, which meant "twin" or "one in a pair". I don't know whether it's been replaced with something else based on "2" in modern Nordic languages. This character seems to have somehow been combined from what was originally a pair of characters called "the twins" or "the couple", based on not only its name but also the story that it apparently reproduced when its right and left legs had sex with each other!

The name comes from PIE *i̯emH-no-/*iemH-no-/*jemH-no-/*yemH-no- (pick your favorite way to deal with that consonant at the beginning; it's the equivalent of Y in English but J or I in a bunch of other languages). That seems to be the origin of Latin "geminus". There isn't a regular sound shift of *i̯- to *g-, but in this case it seems to have been replaced through analogy with "genus".


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## Penyafort

Nanon said:


> Occitan also has _besson _(nm) / _bessona _(nf).
> _Besson _(nm) / _bessonne _(nf) exists in French too, but it is rare and dated. You may come across this word in George Sand's rural novels (XIX century).



Well, Catalan and Occitan are twins themselves.

I didn't know about _besson _being used in Old French, though. That points to the Latin origin being likelier than the pre-Roman one then.


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