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

You need to keep in mind that languages (almost) never exist in isolation. There is always an exchange of words and ideas from one place to another, and this way, also concepts, like shared meanings can be transferred.

In the case of “right” there may be a simpler explanation, though: the “right” side is also the side that is “correct” to use in many situations – simply due to the fact that the vast majority of humans are right-handed.

I know that in Finnish – a language related neither to English, nor to Arabic – right in both meanings is also the same word (“oikea”). But then again, Finnish was also long in close exchange to other Germanic languages (Swedish mostly), so it may well have inherited the concept from there…

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