# Do all languages have homophones? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 8, 2013, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656 "2013-10-08T05:26:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/21 "2013-10-09T04:11:01Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Because Spanish spelling pretty strictly conforms to pronunciation, they are much rarer in Spanish than they are in English or French. However, they do occur. One example is _hoya_ “hole” and _olla_ “pot.” Italian is quite similar, but they also occur: _ho, hai, and ha_ (first, second, and third person singular of _avere_: “to have”) are pronounced identically to _o, ai,_ and _a_ (“oh”, “to the”, and “to”). I’m sure there are others. There are a handful of homonyms as well: _pene_ can mean “penis” or “pains” (plural of _pena_) and _piano_ can mean both “soft” (and the instrument, but that’s a derivation) or “story” as in floor of a building. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/22 "2013-10-09T04:36:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Esperanto advocates sometimes claim that it lacks homophones, but I recall seeing a few examples somewhere or another (that of course I can’t remember). Basically, the roots are all distinct, but there are a couple of cases where a word can be split into roots in two different ways. Yes, that happens quite a bit. Example: _team/o_ ‘team’, and _te/am/o_ ‘love of tea’. (This is a typical way of indicating word structure in Esperanto. Slashes / divide word roots. The ‘/o’ indicates a final ending -o which indicates that the word is a noun. Technically, the -o is a separate word root that means ‘thing that is’, but people usually describe this in terms of endings.) Another: _sorĉ/trumpet/o_ ‘trumpet of the sorcerer’ and _sort/ŝtrumpet/o_ ‘sock of doom’. This one is interesting because the changing division point is in the middle of a consonant cluster and is spelt two different ways depending on where the word roots came together. The letter _ĉ_ is pronounced the same as the letter combination _tŝ_, like English ‘tsh’. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/23 "2013-10-09T05:10:22Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Because Spanish spelling pretty strictly conforms to pronunciation, they are much rarer in Spanish than they are in English or French. However, they do occur. One example is _hoya_ “hole” and _olla_ “pot.” > [@KarlGrenze](#): > > The pronunciation of some syllables has changed with time and/or location in various regions that speak Spanish, such that the words “_halla/haya/aya_” are pronounced the same, but have different meanings. _Haya_ is from the verb _haber_, usually used with another verb (\*Espero que haya llegado bien/\*I hope (he/she/formalyou) have arrived well). _Halla_ is from the verb _hallar_, to find. _Aya_ is a noun, it means nanny. Similar with “_casa/caza_” (house/hunt). Note that two of the examples given here depend on “ll” and “y” being homophones, as does _pollo/poyo_ (chicken/base on which you place something temporarily). For people who differentiate ll and y, those words wouldn’t be homophones. For most speakers, _casa_ and _caza_ are pronounced the same way: either both _casa_ (the majority, this is called _seseo_) or both _caza_ (called _ceceo_); for me they’re distinct. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/24 "2013-10-09T09:53:45Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > Italian…and _piano_ can mean both “soft” (and the instrument, but that’s a derivation) or “story” as in floor of a building. Good examples, except for this one: “piano” meaning “floor of a building” is also originally the same word (i.e., a “derivation”), the root meaning being “flat”. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/25 "2013-10-09T11:46:15Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Off the top of my head : > Avocat (lawyer) and avocat (avocado). Shared pronounciation (ah vo kah) > Couvent (nunnery, pronounced koo van) and couvent (2nd person plural form of the verb couver, meaning brooding eggs, pronounced koov) > fier (proud, pronounced fih err) and fier (to trust someone, pronounced fee yeh) > Président (president, pronounced just like the English word but without the final -t) and président (second person plural form of the verb “présider”, pronounced pre zeedh) > Jean (first name, pronounced something like Zon (nasals are hard ! :))) and jean (as in blue jeans, loan word)… > > I rooted out an attempt at an [exhaustive list](http://www.cetteadressecomportecinquantesignes.com/Best47.htm) here, if you’re interested (website _en français dans le texte_, however). You missed the word “heterophonic”. “Avocat”, lawyer, is pronounced exactly the same as “avocat”, avocado. But the two words spelled “fils” are pronounced differently. English has dozens (if not hundreds) of examples; French appears to have almost none. ---
**Author:** ![MilTan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@MilTan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MilTan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/26 "2013-10-09T13:01:25Z")
Marathi has no or very few homophones that are not true homonyms. The language distinguishes between voiced/unvoiced and aspirated/unaspirated consonants, and uses a script (Devanagiri) that makes the same distinction. Furthermore, Devanagiri uses conjoined consonant-vowel groups that makes it look more like a syllabary. As a result, if a word is pronounced in a certain way, there is only one possible spelling. That being said, there may be dialects that do not make as strong a distinction between the sounds of various consonants, and may therefore have homophones, or may have non-standard ways of pronouncing specific words. This example arises in Hindi, which uses the same writing system as Marathi, and, in theory, has the same feature. But many common Hindi dialects do not pronounce certain words as they are written, leading to more possible homophones. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/27 "2013-10-09T13:51:57Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Note that two of the examples given here depend on “ll” and “y” being homophones, as does _pollo/poyo_ (chicken/base on which you place something temporarily). For people who differentiate ll and y, those words wouldn’t be homophones. For most speakers, _casa_ and _caza_ are pronounced the same way: either both _casa_ (the majority, this is called _seseo_) or both _caza_ (called _ceceo_); for me they’re distinct. I should have mentioned that the example I gave depended on dialect. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/28 "2013-10-09T15:36:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Sunspace** : > > Another: sorĉ/trumpet/o ‘trumpet of the sorcerer’ and sort/ŝtrumpet/o ‘sock of doom’. OK, now I have this mental image of a warlock taking off a very ominous looking stocking, and blowing through it, to grave magical effect. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/29 "2013-10-09T15:54:29Z")
It’s the Sock of the End Times! ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/30 "2013-10-09T16:47:16Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > You missed the word “heterophonic”. “Avocat”, lawyer, is pronounced exactly the same as “avocat”, avocado. But the two words spelled “fils” are pronounced differently. English has dozens (if not hundreds) of examples; French appears to have almost none. Yeah, I wanted to correct that mistake after posting, but the edit window was over. The other 4 I listed are properly heterophonic though, and the link provided lists about 180. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/31 "2013-10-09T23:21:41Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Yeah, I wanted to correct that mistake after posting, but the edit window was over. The other 4 I listed are properly heterophonic though, and the link provided lists about 180. Sorry, I read your first example and dismissed it as, “He doesn’t understand.” I did look at the link and it was interesting. Some of the examples (interviewer) were such obvious borrowings, as were the two pronunciations of forte, that they are hard to credit, but many were really French. Such as the ones along the lines of couvent. I have sent the link to my French speaking friend who had been able to come up with only one example, in addition to my fils (I think it may have been fier). ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656/32 "2013-10-13T13:19:43Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > The building in which I work has no fourth or second floor, because 4 is a homophone of death, and 2 is a homophone of stupid. > … > The two examples I just gave have the same phonemes, and the same tone. I need to correct my own post here, because I don’t want to spread misinformation on the dope of all places… The word for number 4 is “si4” whereas death is “si3” (or “si3wang2”), where the number indicates the tone, so they are not homophones. It is true though, that the similarity of these words is why 4 is considered unlucky, and I was right at least that “two” and one of the words for “stupid” are true homophones (“er4”). Finally it’s also true that there are a shedload of homophones in Mandarin, even with the 4 1/2 tones. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-homophones/670656.md?page=1)