Why do some words in different languages have the same multiple meanings?

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Take the English word “right”. It can mean “true, correct”, but it can also be used in something like “human rights”.

Now take the Arabic word حق. Again, it can mean “true, correct” and the “rights” in “human rights”.

It makes sense for a word to have the same single meaning across different languages. But what is the likeliness that two languages have a word that share the same multiple meanings?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

For this particular word and argument it’s that these usages are all interrelated.

In this example the original root of “right” meaning good, fair, or just. A “right” is just a good, fair, or just thing, so your example true/current/human rights are just sort of reusing the same word over and over again.

Interestingly in English it’s this sense of “correctness” that makes the direction ‘right’ the same word as ‘right’, because “right” (the direction) is seen as being a good and holy thing – for example Jesus sitting “at the right hand of the father”. Similarly ‘left’ and left-handedness was seen as being wrong, or evil – and we use that to this day as well, the Latin word for “left” is “sinister”.

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