False Cognates and Friends between English and Kurdish

Abstract

This exploratory research aims at finding and locating false cognates (friends) between English and Kurdish. False cognates (friends) are words or expressions that have a similar form to one in another language, but a distinctive meaning. Between English and Kurdish, no evident data is available to prove the existence of false cognates and friends. Hence, it is necessary to spotlight this gap and investigate the common similarities and differences between these languages. This is due to the fact that English and Kurdish language belong to the same language tree family which is the Indo-European language families. However, the origin of English traces back to Germanic (anglo-frisian) language family. As for Kurdish language family tree, the standard forms of it belongs to the Indo-Iranian western branch. This project highlights false cognates and friends between English to Kurdish using document review and written language use exploration. Document review is a systematic gathering and documentation of qualitative data. From this perspective, English language etymological as well as Kurdish language etymological dictionaries are going to be consulted. Then, a list of false cognates and friends between the two aforementioned languages will be established and checked by researchers in collaboration with English and Kurdish languages experts. Findings show that there are certain false friends between English and Kurdish languages. The results will benefit researchers working in the comparative field between the aforementioned languages, EFL context, and language teachers. That is, teachers and instructors of English language may use the andragogic implications in their teaching practices in order to facilitate learning on the part of the students.