this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Mildly Interesting

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In an extinct Australian Aboriginal language, Mbabaram, the word for "Dog" is almost exactly the same as the English word for "Dog". The similarity is a complete coincidence. (en.m.wikipedia.org)
submitted 1 year ago by Iliveonsaturdays@sh.itjust.works to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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...the Mbabaram word for "dog" was in fact dúg, pronounced almost identically to the Australian English word...

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[–] Iunnrais@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

I love the analysis done by zompist, here: https://www.zompist.com/chance.htm

In summary, having a few purely coincidental similar words is extremely likely. In fact, if there were no such similarities that would be weirder, from a mathematical perspective… especially (but not necessarily) if you stretch what might be considered a “similar meaning”, which people often do.