# Cognates that span a maximum of languages.



## eno2

Hi,
I am always on the look for cognates and especially for cognates that span a maximum of languages.
Haemorrhoids is one of the higher  scoring. Anecdotal spans at least 8 languages, I found today. 

What I'm  meaning is more 'the use of the same word' than words with common etymology.


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## Testing1234567

Cheese:

Aromanian: cash
Corsican: casgiu
Dalmatian: chis
English: casein
Italian: cacio
Ladin: ciajuel
Neapolitan: caso
Irish: cáis
Manx: caashey
Scottish Gaelic: càise
Old Leonese: keso
Asturian: quesu, queisu
Extremaduran: quesu
Leonese: queisu
Mirandese: queiso
Fala: quexio
Galician: queixo
Portuguese: queijo
Malay: keju
Indonesian: keju
Tetum: keiju
Aragonese: queso
Ladino: kézo
Spanish: queso
Amuzgo: kesò
Navajo: géeso
Seri: quiiz
Tagalog: keso
Quechua: kisu
Breton: keuz
Cornish: keus
Welsh: caws
Romanian: caș
Romansh: chaschiel
Sardinian: casu
Sicilian: caciu
Scots: cheis
English: cheese
Cantonese: 芝士
Japanese: チーズ
Korean: 치즈
Mandarin: 芝士, 起士, 起司
East Frisian: tsīs
Saterland Frisian: Sies
West Frisian: tsiis, tsjiis
Low German: Kees
Plautdietsch: Kjees
Dutch: kaas
Afrikaans: kaas
German: Käse
Luxembourgish: Kéis
Yiddish: קעז
Elfdalian: kęse
Westrobothnian: kǽs’
All information from Wiktionary.


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## eno2

I don't see much cheese there...and much "dialect".

But kaas (Dutch) =

Käse German, cacio It, Kaas S.Afr


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## Testing1234567

Then you need to define what cognate means, because any serious linguist would consider the words in my response above as cognates.

Of course some cognates are closer to others, but that does not mean the other words are not cognates.

I see that you just clarified by editing your original post that you are looking for "the use of the same word", which would be "borrowings". (I don't see the point of rejecting my post above; they essentially all mean cheese, just that the word appeared earlier in the languages and thus suffered more changes... The examples you provided are also different in the languages, but just less different, because the word was borrowed earlier.)

I don't see the point of rejecting some entries by stating that they are "dialects"...

Would this fit your taste better?

Armenian: էներգիա
Asturian: enerxía

Azeri: enerji

Belarusian: эне́ргія
Bulgarian: ене́ргия
Catalan: energia
Czech: energie
Danish: energi

Dutch: energie
Esperanto: energio
Estonian: energia
Finnish: energia
French: énergie
Galician: enerxía

Georgian: ენერგია
German: Energie
Haitian Creole: enèji
Hebrew: אֵנֶרְגִּיָּה
Hungarian: energia
Interlingua: energia
Italian: energia
Japanese: エネルギー
Korean: 에너지
Latvian: enerģija

Lithuanian: energija

Macedonian: енергија
Norwegian: energi
Occitan: energia

Papiamentu: energia
Persian: انرژی
Polish: energia
Portuguese: energia
Romanian: energie
Russian: эне́ргия
Serbo-Croatian: енергија

Slovak: energia

Slovene: energíja

Spanish: energía
Swedish: energi
Tajik: энержӣ
Turkish: enerji
Turkmen: enegi˙a
Ukrainian: ене́ргія
Uzbek: energiya
West Frisian: enerzjy


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## eno2

Yes energy has a huge span, I had it already in my collection. I even had problems and discussed them in the Dutch forum, with "energize", which doesn't exist in Dutch as a verb. It's even difficult to translate....
Personally I never look for what I called dialects (or regional languages), because I'm already "overwhelmed" with bookmarks of dictionaries of all kind. And my interest
is limited really to the five languages I use every now and then (some  more frequently).   I try to memorise those cognates in those languages.
For instance for "queso":  I'm not that interested in what Galicia, Extramadura, Esturias, Leon, Aragon make of it, or other "autonomías" inside of  Spain. The (knowledge of) the Spanish "queso" is sufficient too me. Nevertheless I went to look for the Catalan word for it, just out of curiosity, and it is: formatge. Which makes me think of the French fromage. I also try to check what the wider span of use is for the cognates I'm interested in.

I didn't say your first flurry weren't cognates...The definition is very simple by the way: same root-etymology (the Dutch definition says: same "descent" ).
It's just that my interest lies with  cognates that have stayed  (almost) unchanged.
I don't know Dalmatian, but that could well be the case for "chis" (=>cheese)


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## Testing1234567

eno2 said:


> Personally I never look for what I called dialects (or regional languages), because I'm already "overwhelmed" with bookmarks of dictionaries of all kind. And my interest is limited really to the five languages I use every now and then (some more frequently). I try to memorise those cognates in those languages.


Alright. I don't quite see the point of asking a "maximum of languages" when five languages are what your interested is limited to.



eno2 said:


> Nevertheless I went to look for the Catalan word for it, just out of curiosity, and it is: formatge. Which makes me think of the French fromage.


Vulgar Latin **formāticus* > French *fromage* (metathesis), Occitan *formatge*, Catalan *formatge*, Italian *formaggio*



eno2 said:


> I don't know Dalmatian, but that could well be the case for "chis" (=>cheese)


Dalmatian *chis* (pronounced /kis/) and English *cheese* (pronounced /t͡ʃiːz/) are related as I have mentioned, but they are more far apart than the other pairs, and the fact that they both begin with "ch" is just a coincidence (they mark different sounds). Anyway, they both come from Latin *cāseus*. I don't know much about Dalmatian developments, but examining other Romance languages, I was able to work out that the "e" in *cāseum* (accusative of *cāseus*) has caused the *s* to be palatalized, which might be the source for the *i* in Dalmatian. I'm not going to elaborate much here. The Latin word was borrowed into Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of all Germanic languages, where it developed in its own way to give English *cheese*. The Proto-Germanic form was reconstructed to be **kāsijaz*. The development from *k* to *ch* is called palatalization, and is unique to the Anglo-Frisian languages in the Germanic languages. The change from a long *a* to a long *e* is umlaut (triggered by the *i* in the next syllable), followed by the voicing of the *s* to become a *z*. In the meantime, every phoneme after the *s* (now *z*) was dropped, and the Great Vowel Shift changed the long *e* to a long *i*.

My point is, the appearance can be misleading, because two less-related word can have a similar appearance out of coincidence.


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## Messquito

How about "gay"?


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## Testing1234567

Messquito said:


> How about "gay"?


Strangely, a Germanic word that produced no Germanic inheritants [disputed] (the English and Dutch terms are borrowed from Old French).

Cognates include: English *gay*, French *gai*, Italian *gaio*, and Dutch *gei*/*gaai*.

However, the homosexual sense of the English word was quickly borrowed into many other languages, including Afrikaans, Cantonese, Catalan, Esperanto, Estonian, Georgian, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Maltese, Persian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, and Vietnamese.


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## apmoy70

Ancient Greek *«μάγγανον» mắŋganŏn* (neut.) --> _philtre, means for charming or bewitching others, catapult, ballista_ >
Latin manganum, _machine_
Italian mangano, _sling_
Old French mangonel, _military machine_
English mangonel, _idem_
Albanian mangë, _hackle_
Ossetic mœng, _deceit_


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## Dymn

I think that Chinese is the main language which international lexicon finds more difficult to penetrate.

Take for example the word "kangaroo". Understandably some of the few languages that don't use it are Aboriginal Australian, but then there's Chinese which apparently derives it internally meaning "sack mouse".

So perhaps the vast majority of the words in this list have a (near) universal span. I would define it as "modern day stuff" rather than "Greek-Latin scientific and formal lexicon". The latter in my opinion is limited to Europe, rarely Central Asia and the Middle East, and even more rarely India or the Sinitic sphere. For example "democracy" apparently exists in Turkish, Arabic, Persian... but not Hindi, Chinese or Japanese. Outside Europe, literary languages like Arabic, Sanskrit or Chinese seem to be the main source of formal lexicon for different cultural spheres, or they are simply derived internally.

Finally, many international words which aren't as modern were born as trade flourished. Words like "sugar", "tea", "coffee", "soap"... are a bridge between the West and the East. My favourite is "silk", which may be related to Chinese _sī_ via Greek, which is a beautiful transformation into language of the millenial Silk Road.


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## Penyafort

eno2 said:


> Personally I never look for what I called dialects (or regional languages), because I'm already "overwhelmed" with bookmarks of dictionaries of all kind. And my interestis limited really to the five languages I use every now and then (some  more frequently).   I try to memorise those cognates in those languages. For instance for "queso":  I'm not that interested in what Galicia, Extramadura, Esturias, Leon, Aragon make of it, or other "autonomías" inside of  Spain. The (knowledge of) the Spanish "queso" is sufficient too me. Nevertheless I went to look for the Catalan word for it, just out of curiosity, and it is: formatge. Which makes me think of the French fromage. I also try to check what the wider span of use is for the cognates I'm interested in.



This is just my opinion, of course, but I do not think it is a good idea to ask for cognates and then make disparaging comments about those languages you call 'dialects'. That is, maybe you do not mind if Dutch is considered by some people a mere German dialect, but I am convinced many others would feel offended. Catalan, as Romanists know, is interesting with regard to cognates, precisely because of its central position in between the French, Italian and Spanish/Portuguese groups. (What you consider a 'regional language', by the way, is official in a territory larger than the Netherlands and Flanders combined, and the 8th most spoken language in Western Europe, after Dutch and Portuguese)

But going to the point, in the case of cheese, both descendants from CASEUS and FORMATICUS could even be considered partial cognates to a certain extent, as the ones which chose 'formaticus' were simply taking the adjectival part from a whole lexical block, the _caseus formaticus_ or 'moulded cheese'.

As a candidate for one of the international words with more 'cognates' around the world, I would say _chocolate_, which even passes the test of the ones that take fewer loanwords.


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## eno2

I'm only using languages, like Google Translate does.
Also the subforum here is entitled "Languages"

My God, can't I use the word dialect without sounding disparaging? In no way I'm making "disparaging comments" about dialects. Read it only as  'regional language' then, a term I used also here above .

[ I have my own dialect: West -Flanders Flemish. Flemish is really a collection of dialects. If Dutch is a dialect I'm a double dialect speaker then. I don't care If Dutch is said to be a German dialect, it's treated all over the board as an official language in  it's own right. What else? 





> *Dutch* (
> 
> _Nederlands_ (help·info)) is a West Germanic language that is spoken by around 23 million people as a first language—including most of the population of the Netherlands and about sixty percent of Belgium—and by another 5 million as a second language.[2][3][5][6] It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after English and German.


Dutch language - Wikipedia. It's a Germanic language, like English. Not a Germanic dialect.

It shouldn't be difficult: normally a dialect doesn't possess a written version]

It's  just that I'm personally not interested in dialect/regional languages  cognates.   That's all. As I said my interest is practical and didactic. It's for learning and enlarging vocabulary.  I don't want to learn/use  more dialects then my own dialect West -Flanders Flemish. Including dialects/regional languages multiplies the results perhaps by then or more. It's logical that searches on etymology of a word in internet return automatically results in dialect/regional languages. Something that a search in  Google Translate does not.

Chocolate: great span indeed. I checked 18 languages....all with minimum spelling
differences.




apmoy70 said:


> Ancient Greek *«μάγγανον» mắŋganŏn* (neut.) --> _philtre, means for charming or bewitching others, catapult, ballista_ >
> English mangonel, _idem_


Και σε  Νέα ελληνική;
For French, GT gives mangonneau.I think it's rather a small span...
Ancient Greek is a great deliverer of cognates, Theo-compounds for instance, like theocracy. But Deus (latin) and Theos (A.Gr) are unrelated.



Dymn said:


> I think that Chinese is the main language which international lexicon finds more difficult to penetrate.
> 
> Take for example the word "kangaroo". Understandably some of the few languages that don't use it are Aboriginal Australian, but then there's Chinese which apparently derives it internally meaning "sack mouse".
> 
> So perhaps the vast majority of the words in this list have a (near) universal span. I would define it as "modern day stuff" rather than "Greek-Latin scientific and formal lexicon". The latter in my opinion is limited to Europe, rarely Central Asia and the Middle East, and even more rarely India or the Sinitic sphere. For example "democracy" apparently exists in Turkish, Arabic, Persian... but not Hindi, Chinese or Japanese. Outside Europe, literary languages like Arabic, Sanskrit or Chinese seem to be the main source of formal lexicon for different cultural spheres, or they are simply derived internally.
> 
> Finally, many international words which aren't as modern were born as trade flourished. Words like "sugar", "tea", "coffee", "soap"... are a bridge between the West and the East. My favourite is "silk", which may be related to Chinese _sī_ via Greek, which is a beautiful transformation into language of the millenial Silk Road.


Interesting  list. I learned also what Pinyin is.
Silk: at first glance I find a span of 8. Silk has competition of zijde Dutch -seda SP- soie FR- seta IT -siden SW though. Zijde from Latin saeda(m) from Mongol sirkeh (zijde). Connection of 'zijde' with Old English silk but once mentioned out of five sources.


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## apmoy70

eno2 said:
			
		

> Και σε  Νέα ελληνική;
> For French, GT gives mangonneau.I think it's rather a small span...
> Ancient Greek is a great deliverer of cognates, Theo-compounds for instance, like theocracy. But Deus (latin) and Theos (A.Gr) are unrelated.


Indeed, Deus is related to Zeus.
«Μάγγανον» hasn't survived in MoGr unfortunately (we do not use it at all) but there's its feminine form *«μαγγανεία»* [maŋgaˈni.a] which describes _black magic _(or something like that) and it's still in use.
There's also the rare v. *«μαγγανεύω»* [maŋgaˈnevo] --> _to deceit by using "magic" philtres, or tricks_


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## Testing1234567

@eno2 You might be interested in "penicillin":



Spoiler




Arabic: بِنِسِلِين (binisilīn)
Basque: penizilina
Belarusian: пеніцылін (penicylín)
Bulgarian: пеницилин (penicilín)
Catalan: penicil·lina
Chinese: 盤尼西林/盘尼西林 (pánníxīlín)
Czech: penicilín
Danish: penicillin
Dutch: penicilline
Esperanto: penicilino
Faroese: penicillin
Finnish: penisilliini
French: pénicilline
Georgian: პენიცილინი (ṗenicilini)
German: Penicillin/Penizillin
Greek: πενικιλίνη (penikilíni)
Hebrew: פניצילין

Hindi: पेनिसिलिन (penisilin)
Hungarian: penicillin
Icelandic: penisillín
Ido: penicilino
Indonesian: penisilin
Italian: penicillina
Japanese: ペニシリン (penishirin)
Kazakh: пенициллин (penïcïllïn)
Khmer: ប៉េនីស៊ីលីន (pâyniseelin)
Korean: 페니실린 (penisillin)
Lithuanian: penicilinas
Macedonian: пеницилин (penicilín)
Marathi: पेनिसिलिन (penisilin)
Norwegian: penicillin
Occitan: penicillina
Persian: پنیسیلین (penisilin)
Polish: penicylina
Portuguese: penicilina
Romanian: penicilină
Russian: пеницилли́н (penicillín)
Serbo-Croatian: пеницилин (penicilin)
Slovak: penicilín
Slovene: penicilin
Spanish: penicilina
Swedish: penicillin
Tamil: பெனிசிலின் (peṉiciliṉ)
Telugu: పెన్సిలిన్ (pensilin)
Thai: เพนิซิลลิน (pâynísíllin)
Turkish: penisilin
Ukrainian: пеніцилін (penicylín)
Vietnamese: penicillin
Any minor language you would want to remove from the list?


You might like spaghetti also:



Spoiler




Arabic: سْبَاغِيتِي (sbāḡītī)
Basque: espageti
Catalan: espagueti
Czech: špagety
Dutch: spaghetti
Esperanto: spagetoj
Estonian: spagetid
Finnish: spagetti
French: spaghettis
German: Spaghetti/Spagetti
Italian: spaghetti
Japanese: スパゲッティ (supagetti)
Korean: 스파게티 (seupageti)
Lojban: djarspageti
Macedonian: шпагети (špageti)
Malay: spageti
Mongolian: шпагетти (špagetti)
Northern Sami: spageahtta
Norwegian: spagetti
Persian: اسپاگتی (espâgeti)
Polish: spaghetti
Portuguese: espaguete
Romanian: spaghete
Russian: спаге́тти (spagétti)
Slovak: špagety
Spanish: espagueti
Swahili: spageti
Swedish: spagetti/spaghetti
Turkish: spagetti
Welsh: sbageti


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## apmoy70

^^
Add MoGr *«σπαγγέτι»* [spaɲˈɟeti] (neut.) to your second list.


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## Red Arrow

eno2 said:


> I don't see much cheese there...


Cognates don't need to have the same meaning.

For example:
English wife = Dutch wijf
English f*ck = Dutch fok
English war = Duch war
English overdrive = Dutch overdrijven
English black = Dutch blakend

These words don't mean the same thing, but they obviously share the same root.


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## eno2

Laconiek: in most languages = short, not wordy, lapidary
In Dutch: calm, phlegmatic.


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## Delvo

eno2 said:


> Chocolate: great span indeed. I checked 18 languages....all with minimum spelling differences.


For the same reason, "vanilla", "tomato", "potato", and "maize" would work similarly. They're all things that Old World languages couldn't have a word for before they could sail to the New World, where the plants were, so they tend to adopt whichever New World word for them they came into contact with first.

Most other widespread cognates will usually be recent inventions or discoveries, so here are a couple of relatively older ones: "algebra" and "algorithm".


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## S.V.

Tarahumara _Riosi_, Tzotzil _Riox_, Zapoteco _Dioz_, Cuicateco _D'indios_, Zapoteco _Diuxi_, Guahibo _Dioso_, Huave _Dios_, Seri _Yooz_, Mixe _Dios_, Mixteco _Yandios_, Amuzgo _Tyo'ts'on_, Ixil _Tiuxh_, Tz'utujil _Dyoos_.

Tagalog _Diyos_, Ladino _Dyo_, Spanish _Dios_. And a hundred more... But I wonder what they mean.


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## elroy

Penyafort said:


> As a candidate for one of the international words with more 'cognates' around the world, I would say _chocolate_, which even passes the test of the ones that take fewer loanwords.


What about “alcohol”?


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## apmoy70

Testing1234567 said:


> Cheese:
> 
> Aromanian: cash
> Corsican: casgiu
> Dalmatian: chis
> English: casein
> Italian: cacio
> Ladin: ciajuel
> Neapolitan: caso
> Irish: cáis
> Manx: caashey
> Scottish Gaelic: càise
> Old Leonese: keso
> Asturian: quesu, queisu
> Extremaduran: quesu
> Leonese: queisu
> Mirandese: queiso
> Fala: quexio
> Galician: queixo
> Portuguese: queijo
> Malay: keju
> Indonesian: keju
> Tetum: keiju
> Aragonese: queso
> Ladino: kézo
> Spanish: queso
> Amuzgo: kesò
> Navajo: géeso
> Seri: quiiz
> Tagalog: keso
> Quechua: kisu
> Breton: keuz
> Cornish: keus
> Welsh: caws
> Romanian: caș
> Romansh: chaschiel
> Sardinian: casu
> Sicilian: caciu
> Scots: cheis
> English: cheese
> Cantonese: 芝士
> Japanese: チーズ
> Korean: 치즈
> Mandarin: 芝士, 起士, 起司
> East Frisian: tsīs
> Saterland Frisian: Sies
> West Frisian: tsiis, tsjiis
> Low German: Kees
> Plautdietsch: Kjees
> Dutch: kaas
> Afrikaans: kaas
> German: Käse
> Luxembourgish: Kéis
> Yiddish: קעז
> Elfdalian: kęse
> Westrobothnian: kǽs’
> All information from Wiktionary.


So, Greek is the odd one out, *«τυρί»* [t̠iˈɾi] (neut.) < Koine neuter diminutive *«τυρίον» tŭríŏn* < Classical masc. *«τῡρός» tūrós* (PIE *tuH-ró < *teu̯H- _to swell_ cf. Av. tūiri- _whey_, tūiriia- _curdled milk_, Proto-Slavic *tyti > Rus. тучнеть, _to ɡrow fat_, Pol. tyć, _to ɡain weiɡht_).
But...
*«Βούτῡρος» boútūrŏs* (masc.) & *«βούτῡρoν» boútūrŏn* (neut.) < *«βοῦς» boûs* + «τυρός» =

Lat. būtȳrum
It. butirro
Sp. butiro
Eng. butter
Fr. beurre
Jap. バター (batā)
Kor. 버터 (beoteo)
Dt. boter
Ger. Butter
Esper. butero
Maltese butir
BCS puter/ путер
Zulu ibhotela


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## AutumnOwl

Delvo said:


> For the same reason, "vanilla", "tomato", "potato", and "maize" would work similarly. They're all things that Old World languages couldn't have a word for before they could sail to the New World, where the plants were, so they tend to adopt whichever New World word for them they came into contact with first.
> 
> Most other widespread cognates will usually be recent inventions or discoveries, so here are a couple of relatively older ones: "algebra" and "algorithm".


There are also old-world words that have been adopted to many other languages. With the exception of Swedish and Norwegian (bastu and badstue) the word sauna is used for this: Sauna - Wikipedia
It's surprising that something that was a part of the antique Roman baths, the sudatory, doesn't have a word in what once was the Roman Empire.


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## shawnee

apmoy70 said:


> Indeed, Deus is related to Zeus.
> «Μάγγανον» hasn't survived in MoGr unfortunately (we do not use it at all) but there's its feminine form *«μαγγανεία»* [maŋgaˈni.a] which describes _black magic _(or something like that) and it's still in use.
> There's also the rare v. *«μαγγανεύω»* [maŋgaˈnevo] --> _to deceit by using "magic" philtres, or tricks_


I have come across it (Ionian dialect) as the name of an instrument for the processing of flax. That is in 19th c. not sure about present.


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## Penyafort

elroy said:


> What about “alcohol”?


Another international one. But I'm afraid it doesn't pass the Chinese test.


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## Penyafort

apmoy70 said:


> *«Βούτῡρος» boútūrŏs* (masc.) & *«βούτῡρoν» boútūrŏn* (neut.) < *«βοῦς» boûs* + «τυρός» =
> 
> Lat. būtȳrum
> It. butirro
> Sp. *butiro*
> Eng. butter
> Fr. beurre


_Butiro _is a word never used, which apparently referred to a specific type of butter. All the Romance languages of Iberia use a pre-Roman word for it, *MANTEIKA, either Iberian or Celtic: Galician-Portuguese _manteiga_; Asturian _mantega_, Spanish _manteca_, _mantequilla_; Aragonese _manteca_; Catalan _mantega._


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## elroy

Penyafort said:


> Another international one. But I'm afraid it doesn't pass the Chinese test.


But “chocolate” does?


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## Penyafort

elroy said:


> But “chocolate” does?



巧克力 (qiǎokèlì), 朱古力 (zhūgǔlì)


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## garbage_cnbeta

English: Mom
Chinese: Mama
I've heard mother was called in a lot of languages sound the same (at least close).


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## Welsh_Sion

_Butiro _is a word never used, which apparently referred to a specific type of butter. All the Romance languages of Iberia use a pre-Roman word for it, *MANTEIKA, either Iberian or Celtic: Galician-Portuguese _manteiga_; Asturian _mantega_, Spanish _manteca_, _mantequilla_; Aragonese _manteca_; Catalan _mantega.

___________

*MAN- as 'butter'. The Celtic evidence?

_Butter _in 'Celtic'. Old Welsh: _emennin_, Middle Welsh: _ymenyn_, Modern Welsh: _menyn,_ Old Cornish _amenen, _Modern Cornish_ manyn_, Middle Breton _amanenn, _Modern Breton_ amann, _Middle Irish_ imb: *ŋɡw-en- _from the IE root *_onɡw ‘_anointing_’ _cf. Lat. _unguen_, Old High German _alcho_.

GPC: 'menyn'


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