False friends and other unfortunate coincidences

[WeepingElf]

The Celtic definite articles are not cognate to the Romance and Germanic indefinite ones. The Romance and Germanic indefinite articles are from the numeral 'one', which is cognate between the two groups, ultimately from PIE *oinos. The Celtic definite articles are from a Proto-Celtic form *sindos of whatever etymology.

[k1234567890y]

English gorilla v.s. Proto-West Germanic *gurilā "young person"?

Proto-West Germanic *gurilā is the etymology of the English word girl btw

[Znex]

English bingo vs. Cantonese 邊個 bin1go3 "who? whom?"

[Arayaz]

Turkish yaz "summer" and Leonese yaz "accumulation of ice"

[Flavia]

Latin NUNC "now"
Spanish nunca "never" < NUMQUAM

[Arayaz]

Latin NUNC "now"
Spanish nunca "never" < NUMQUAM

It's nunc or nunca ...

[Flavia]

Latin NUNC "now"
Spanish nunca "never" < NUMQUAM

It's nunc or nunca ...

Venī strictē mē tentum

[Arayaz]

Latin NUNC "now"
Spanish nunca "never" < NUMQUAM

It's nunc or nunca ...

Venī strictē mē tentum

Google Translate suggests that this is Latvian? Goes to show how much it knows; I am sure it is Latin. Yet is this a pun of some sort that I am not getting? I have looked up the definitions of the words ─ yet I feel there is deeper meaning than I am seeing ─ I am not a scholar of Latin; I know not what it truly means. Are some of these false friends, perchance? Or am I overanalyzing the words I see?

[Flavia]

Latin NUNC "now"
Spanish nunca "never" < NUMQUAM

It's nunc or nunca ...

Venī strictē mē tentum

Google Translate suggests that this is Latvian? Goes to show how much it knows; I am sure it is Latin. Yet is this a pun of some sort that I am not getting? I have looked up the definitions of the words ─ yet I feel there is deeper meaning than I am seeing ─ I am not a scholar of Latin; I know not what it truly means. Are some of these false friends, perchance? Or am I overanalyzing the words I see?

"It's now or never, come hold me tight" from Elvis Presley's song.

[Arayaz]

Latin NUNC "now"
Spanish nunca "never" < NUMQUAM

It's nunc or nunca ...

Venī strictē mē tentum

Google Translate suggests that this is Latvian? Goes to show how much it knows; I am sure it is Latin. Yet is this a pun of some sort that I am not getting? I have looked up the definitions of the words ─ yet I feel there is deeper meaning than I am seeing ─ I am not a scholar of Latin; I know not what it truly means. Are some of these false friends, perchance? Or am I overanalyzing the words I see?

"It's now or never, come hold me tight" from Elvis Presley's song.

Ahhhh, I'm afraid I've never listened to much by Elvis, and didn't get the reference ...

[Flavia]

Latin NUNC "now"
Spanish nunca "never" < NUMQUAM

It's nunc or nunca ...

Venī strictē mē tentum

Google Translate suggests that this is Latvian? Goes to show how much it knows; I am sure it is Latin. Yet is this a pun of some sort that I am not getting? I have looked up the definitions of the words ─ yet I feel there is deeper meaning than I am seeing ─ I am not a scholar of Latin; I know not what it truly means. Are some of these false friends, perchance? Or am I overanalyzing the words I see?

"It's now or never, come hold me tight" from Elvis Presley's song.

Ahhhh, I'm afraid I've never listened to much by Elvis, and didn't get the reference ...

I don't listen to him either. It's a quite well-known song though.

[Khemehekis]

Here's a completely coincidental conlang false friend.

The word for "parents" in Kankonian is homoses. Presumably this is related to helemas (mother) and hoimas (father). That word has been in the language for decades. Its excerptal form, meaning "parent", is homoset, which makes homos- the "hard" root.

To verb for "to cross", "to hybridize" is uksul. This word has been in the language for many years.

Well, today, I needed to create the Kankonian word for "to backcross". I decided to combine the words for "parent" and "to cross" to form this one. After looking up "to cross" in my dictionary spreadsheet file, it turned out the word for "to backcross" would be . . .

homosuksul (to backcross) / homosexual

[Salmoneus]

Latin NUNC "now"
Spanish nunca "never" < NUMQUAM

It's nunc or nunca ...

Venī strictē mē tentum

Google Translate suggests that this is Latvian? Goes to show how much it knows; I am sure it is Latin. Yet is this a pun of some sort that I am not getting? I have looked up the definitions of the words ─ yet I feel there is deeper meaning than I am seeing ─ I am not a scholar of Latin; I know not what it truly means. Are some of these false friends, perchance? Or am I overanalyzing the words I see?

"It's now or never, come hold me tight" from Elvis Presley's song.

Ahhhh, I'm afraid I've never listened to much by Elvis, and didn't get the reference ...

I don't listen to him either. It's a quite well-known song though.

FWIW, the song is by Eduard di Capua, based on a tune by Alfredo Mazzucchi, and was written in 1898. At the time Elvis sang it, it was already quite well known in the US, both in its original Neapolitan version and with new English lyrics. Elvis paid some guys to write new lyrics for his version.

And yes, the Elvis single is one of the ten best-selling singles of all time.