The Similarity Trap

As we try to figure out the evolutionary trees for languages and species, we sometimes get led astray by similar but unrelated words and traits.

LEARN MORE
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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Cladistics: A method of recreating evolutionary trees based on evidence about relationships.
- Etymology: The study of the origin of words and how they have changed throughout history.
- Convergent Evolution: A process whereby different species evolve similar traits in order to adapt to similar environments.
- Polyphyly: A group containing members with multiple ancestral sources.
- Homoplasy: A trait shared by a group of species that is not shared in their common ancestor.
- False Cognates: Pairs of words with similar sounds and meanings but unrelated etymologies.

If you liked this week’s video, you might also like:

CREDITS
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Script Writer: David Goldenberg
Script Editor: Emily Elert
Video Illustrator: Jessika Raisor
Video Director: David Goldenberg, Emily Elert
Video Narrator: Emily Elert
With Contributions From: Henry Reich, Alex Reich, Kate Yoshida, Ever Salazar, Peter Reich
Music by: Nathaniel Schroeder

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

IMAGE CREDITS
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Lappet-faced Vulture (Old World) - Steve Garvie

Turkey vulture (New World) - Flickr User minicooper93402

Chinchilla lanigera - Nicolas Guérin

Naked Mole Rat - Roman Klementschitz

Ganges river dolphin - Zahangir Alom, NOAA (Public Domain)

Orcinus orcas - Robert Pittman, NOAA (Public Domain)

Euphorbia obesa - Frank Vincentz

Astrophytum asterias - David Midgley

Sweet William Dwarf - Nicholas M. Bashour

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OUR LINKS
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REFERENCES
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Atkinson, Quentin. (2018). Personal Communication. Department of Evolution and Human Behavior at the University of Auckland.

[TommoCarroll]

*Convergent Evolution* is literally one of the coolest things in nature! That and symbiosis! 🦈🐬

What’s everyone else’s favourite things in nature??? 🌿

[TommoCarroll]

*Yes! The language analogy is my favourite when explains natural selection and evolution to people!* 😄👍





Gotta love you guys for that!

[tiacho]

Part of the reason that similar words for mother and father (especially the simplified forms) exist in many unrelated languages is that they are some of the simplest sounds to vocalise. Ma Ma, has a labial consonant and the lip shape is relaxed to voice the vowel.

[ljfaag]

"Emoji" and "Emoticon" not being related is the primary message I got from this video.

[aysenursancar]

In Turkish, boat is "kayık" with an ı not i. Believe me it changes a lot!

[rfldss]

mother in french is "mère" not "mére". The direction of the accent matters. è is pronounced like the A in "I am", and é is pronounced like the E in "fiancé" (fyi, that words comes from the synonymous french word) ;)

[Spellweaver]

The most amazing thing, I'd say, is when two things look similar, and have a common ancestor but they reached this similarity in entirely unrelated ways.
Latin word Luna (Moon), for instance, is related to the word "lux" that means light in Latin. This word's oldest known ancestor is "louks" that meant something related to light in proto-indoeuropean language.
However, there is another "luna" word, found in slavic languages. In Russian in particular, it means "moon" as well. But in most slavic languages it means just "glow", and even in Russian this meaning exists as an outdated word. In fact, for most of its history the word had nothing to do with the moon. And the closest known slavic word to this one is "luch", meaning "beam of light". However, this entirely unrelated word has the same ancestor as the latin "lux" - that same "louks" from proto-indoeuropean language.
So this is kind of a story of two brothers going each their own way yet meeting in the end.

[MateusAntonioBittencourt]

I was skeptical about the french word Feu and german Feuer having different origins. So I did some research.

Feuer has its origens in Proto-German *fōr, who's origens is the Proto-Indo-European *péh₂wr̥. Feu in the other hand has it's origens in the Latin focus (which means hearth) who's origens are probably Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂-. While Latin itself used ignis for fire, which origens is the Proto-Indo-European *h₁n̥gʷnis.

Fun fact... *péh₂wr̥ and *h₁n̥gʷnis both means fire in Proto-Indo-European, but *péh₂wr̥ is feminine and passive while *h₁n̥gʷnis is masculine and active.

[cup_check_official]

Ah, the similarity trap!
The spell i use to lure characters (potential partners)

[notmyname]

Foodchain! Foodchain! Foodchain!.. ... ...
Wait wrong video.

[mr.redteawood]

Wow, this is the first time I see an English channel mentioning Catalan

[Petit-Jose]

Actually mother in fench is "mère", not "mére". It sounds so weird !

Cheers

[AnarcticPanda]

Species don't evolve at the same rates or in the same ways, I think part of our confusion is manufactured by our assumption that two species on a graph are similar or dissimilar because of how "distant" they have become biologically. Crocodiles and many sharks for example have looked (and as far as we can tell behaved) pretty much the same for millions of years, whereas some other species are forced to evolve (or just happen to evolve) much more quickly in obvious ways and become much more distinct.

When you draw a big graph where the two vultures are on separate ends they may seem dissimilar because many more different looking species have split off from each line of vultures, but if neither have changed drastically or happen to have evolved in similar ways (as mentioned with the bald heads), they may really be more biologically similar than a species much more "closely related" to them. It's a Ship of Theseus problem, the words we use to define a thing do not necessarily change with that thing, and when a change officially causes this animal to become a new thing is not strictly defined. The vultures may or may not be more similar to eachother than the other birds on the graph with them, but how many other birds have evolved out of their families since they were considered the same animal is only an indicator as to how dissimilar they are.

What i'm trying to get at is that while the Similarity Trap is a legitimate problem, you may also create a sort of "Dissimilarity Trap" by assuming that these two vultures are less similar to eachother than the other birds on the chart simply because they are less related by our arbitrary definition of what the word "related" means.

For example do we say two people are similar to eachother because they come from the same place or do we say two people are similar to eachother because they are like eachother? You can draw up an official definition for what a word like similar or related SHOULD mean but every person using can still be thinking a slightly different thing, even if it looks the same the meaning of the word is just as dynamic as these species.

[Donar]

0:10 Small changes occur in genetic and memetic traits ... FTFY (This video was the perfect opportunity to mention the roots of the word meme)

[lowlize]

The similarity in the language example exists because both words derive from the most common first syllable that babies pronounce, "ma", often repeated to form "mama", which is then associated with the mother because the mother is what a baby most probably has near them at any moment. Similarly for "papa" meaning father in many languages. So in this and many other cases the similarity trap is not really a trap, only the connection is further upstream than one may initially think.

[berni]

As a biologist and an amateur in languages I have to say I loved this video; I'd love a larger one, but it's something I've always said, how languages evolve as any other species :D

[lykos]

1:03 In Turkish it isn't "Kayik" it is "Kayık"

[moniquelabonte]

Your videos help me so much with my dream job. I'm ALWAYS so fascinated by your facts

[JustinY.]

I bet my arm and my leg that the website will be registered within a day

[MattisProbably]

Red pandas and giant pandas are also a good example. They don't look the same but both have a false thumb they use to grab things so for years everyone thought they are directly related. Turns out the giant panda is a regular bear but the red panda is a distant relative of raccoons.
Then again, raccoons and red pandas look more similar than giant pandas and red pandas. So I don't know what kind of point I was trying to my make :)