A Nasty False Cognate
July 4th, 2006 by MarkTo Chinese people, maybe this sign looks normal. But, as a former Japanese student, I found this sign very amusing.
手紙- a false cognateHosted on Zooomr
In every language I know of that has borrowed from the Chinese writing system, 手 means hand and 紙 means paper. Many many words made out of multiple characters have the same meanings in Japanese as they do in Chinese. This case is an exception. 手紙 means “letter” in Japanese, but in the Chinese sign above, it means “toilet paper”… a nasty false cognate if I’ve ever seen one! Does anybody know what 手紙 means in Korean?
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July 4th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
I’ll ask and tell you later…
haha
July 12th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
There’s something evening nastier about 手紙–it’s a homonym for “finger” (手指) Fortunately, it seems that 手紙 is rarely used in Chinese. I mentioned it to someone and they immediately thought I was talking about Japanese. In the photo, the complete word is 抹手紙.