Random thought

[pne]

I recently realised that there are a Maltese and a Klingon word which not only look very similar but also mean similar things! Random inter-language coincidences such as this amuse me a lot.

The words are jitlob in Maltese (roughly, "he prays/asks for/begs") and jItlhob in Klingon ("I request/ask/plead").

In pronunciation, they're not that close (roughly, [ˈjɪtlɔp] or "YITT-lopp" in Maltese and [ʤɪˈtɬob] or "djih-TLOBE" in Klingon), but it's still interesting.

Comments

[pleiades829.livejournal.com]

Haha, that's awesome!

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

Is that similar to ghotI’ ?

[pne.livejournal.com]

In what way similar?

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

That they intentionally took a "real" word and made it a Klingon word?

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ah! I doubt it, in this case.

It's not unthinkable, though.

[robnorth.livejournal.com]

Well, remembering that Klingon is an "invented" language ... did the inventor know Maltese?

If one was inventing a language and looking for weird words to use as a base, Maltese would be on my list. Toss in Basque, Inuktitut, and any of the Finno-Ugric languages, and you'd end up with something that would confuse the snot out of 99% of the world's population.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Well, remembering that Klingon is an "invented" language ... did the inventor know Maltese?

No idea.

If one was inventing a language and looking for weird words to use as a base, Maltese would be on my list. Toss in Basque, Inuktitut, and any of the Finno-Ugric languages, and you'd end up with something that would confuse the snot out of 99% of the world's population.

Good point.

I'm still inclined to think it coincidence, especially as the morphemes split up differently -- Klingon is jI- "I - none" + tlhob "ask, request" and Maltese is, depending on how you want to analyse it j- "he/they" + itlob "pray (imperfect stem)" or jiXYoZ "third person masculine singular imperfect vowel pattern" + t-l-b "pray (consonant stem)".

But that needn't deter someone borrowing into another language, as witness things such as retaining part of or all of the article in the source language (e.g. Maltese "ilma" (water) which has the definate article of Arabic "al-ma" or Creole "zwazo" from French "les oiseaux" or "des oiseaux").

But I don't know. Klingon does have quite a few linguistic puns and words that are not simply made up but are based somehow on existing words in other languages.

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

Or Allah, which is simply Arabic for the god. Many uninformed English speakers believe that "Allah" is a proper name, like "Zeus" or "Jupiter".

Actually, that's similar too: Latin Jupiter may come from the Greek phrase Ζευς πατηρ father Zeus.