Homonyms are words with the same sound (homophones) or spelling (homographs), but differ in meaning.
Finnish is totally unrelated to Japanese and Italian, but it has quite a few curious homonyms with them because of featured they share:
- Consonant/vowel alternation
- Words frequently ending in a vowel
- A common trait is also double consonants (alternated by vowels)
This results in completely unrelated words being identical! What is a noun in one language, can be an adjective or a verb in another though. Other times it’s surprisigly words in the same domain (see me/te in Finnish and Italian!)
- tori: market square (Finnish), bulls (italian), bird(s) (Japanese)
- me: we (Finnish), me (Italian), eye(s) (Japanese)
- te: plural you (Finnish), you (complement pronoun, Italian), hand (Japanese)
Finnish and Japanese both use (or Japanese is transcripted with) a K for the esact same sound Italian uses C for:
- kani/cani: bunny (Finnish), dogs (Italian), crab(s) (Japanese) – here surprisingly all animal names!
- kasa/casa: pile (Finnish), house (Italian), umbrella (Japanese)
Sometimes the same word is actually very similar in other languages, but the way Finnish, Japanese and Italian adapt it is very similar or ends up looking identical to other words:
- poro: reindeer (Finnish), pore (Italian), the polo game (Japanese)
- shokki: shock (Finnish), tableware (Japanese)
- kokki: cook (Finnish), national flag (Japanese)
Finnish – Japanese
- ase: weapon (Finnish) – sweat (Japanese:汗)
- haka: hook (Finnish) – grave (Japanese)
- hana: tap/faucet (Finnish) – flower, nose (Japanese:花／鼻)
- haku: search (Finnish), vomit (Japanese:吐く)
- himo: lust (Finnish) – ribbon (Japanese:綬)
- kanki: wood/metal bar +slang for bon..r – ventilation (Japanese:換気)
- koe: test/exam (Finnish) – voice, sound (Japanese:声)
- koko: size, entire (Finnish) – here (Japanese:ここ)
- kumi: rubber (Finnish) – group (Japanese組み)
- kura: mud (Finnish) – saddle (Japanese:鞍)
- kuri: discipline (Finnish) – chestnut (Japanese:栗)
- kutsu: invitation (Finnish) – shoe (Japanese:靴下)
- mono: ski boot (Finnish) – object, item (Japanese:靴)
- naku: naked (Finnish) – cry (Japanese:泣く）
- uni: dream (Finnish) – sea urchin (Japanese:うに)
(Many found through finland-japan-blog tumblr blog)
Finnish – Italian
- lama: recession (Finnish) blade (Italian)
- lampo: heat (Finnish), lightning (Italian)
- lato: barn (Finnish), angle (Italian)
- lima: mucus (Finnish), a [nail] file (Italian)
- lumi: snow (Finnish), lumens/lamps (Italian)
- matto: carpet (Finnish), crazy (Italian)
- multa: mold (Finnish), fine [as financial penalty] (Italian)
- vino: crooked (Finnish), wine (Italian)
- nero: genius (Finnish), black (Italian)
- palo: a fire (Finnish), pole (Italian)
- pala: piece (Finnish), shovel (Italian)
- panna: to put (Finnish), whipped cream (Italian)
- peli: game (Finnish), body hair (Italian)
- pelle: clown (Finnish), skin (Italian)
- sana: word (Finnish), healthy [f] (Italian)
- suola: salt (Finnish), loam (Italian)
- suora: straight (Finnish), nun (Italian)
- pieni: small (Finnish), full [pl] (Italian)
- tutti: pacifier (Finnish), everybody (Italian)
- eri: different (Finnish), [you] were (Italian)
- pino: stack (Finnish, pine tree +a name (Italian)
- tuo: those (Finnish), your(s) (Italian)
You also have pöllö, meaning owl in Finnish while pollo is chicken in Italian, while töpö is bug in Finnish and topo mouse in Italian
Other words of Italian/latin origin that also exist in English have a different meaning in English: Villa is wool, lava is platform
Do you know more homonyms like these? comment with them!
a Polyglot illustrating Scandinavia 