Day: September 20, 2016

Nick Nicholas’ answer to What are some words in your language whose pronunciation is accidentally similar to a word in another language?

Greek mati and Malay mata, eye

From Dimitra Triantafyllidou

Nusa in Bali means islands. Looks very similar to Greek νήσος ‘island’.

Joachim Pense’s answer to What are some words in your language whose pronunciation is accidentally similar to a word in another language?

German “Ach so” is quite similar to Japanese “A’ soo”, and it has the same meaning. The ‘ in the Japanese is a glottal stop, while the German ch is the famous “ach-sound”, but close enough.

The meaning is ‘Oh, I see.’

And indeed, “A'” means ‘Ach’, ‘Oh’ and “soo” means ‘so’ (both English and German).