Cognates

One of the reasons I love solving Rosettagrams the multi-lingual cryptograms is because of the familiarity one gains with the intricacies of foreign languages. Mainly that is due to Cognates. Cognates are words in a foreign language that share so much in etymology with similar words in your native tongue, that guessing the meaning of the word becomes easy. For example you guess easily that the word anuario in spanish has something to do with the concept of the word year or annual, because it share the same root as the English word annual. In fact the word annuario is the spanish equivalent of the English word yearbook. That recognizable root is a Cognate, and it is why it is easy to translate a foreign language, you have not studied before.

Following is a list I found in the Erie Times Sunday Newspaper Multi-lingual Loop a Word Puzzle on April 24, 2011.(I actually made one change to the list)  I'm not into Loop-A-Word, not really challenging as puzzles go, but what a great list of words to illustrate the Cognate Concept