Editing False friend (section)

== Semantic change ==
In bilingual situations, false friends often result in a [[semantic change]]—a real new meaning that is then commonly used in a language. For example, the Portuguese {{Lang|pt|humoroso}} ('capricious') changed its meaning in American Portuguese to 'humorous', owing to the English surface-cognate ''humorous''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://unravellingmag.com/articles/semantic-false-friends/ |title=Semantic False Friends |publisher=Unravel |access-date=21 January 2025}}</ref> 

The [[Itanglese|American Italian]] {{Lang|it|fattoria}} lost its original meaning, "farm", in favor of "factory", owing to the phonetically similar surface-cognate English ''factory'' (cf. Standard Italian {{Lang|it|fabbrica}}, 'factory'). Instead of the original {{Lang|it|fattoria}}, the phonetic adaptation American Italian {{Lang|it|farma}} became the new signifier for "farm" (Weinreich 1963: 49; see "one-to-one correlation between signifiers and referents").{{Full citation needed|date=February 2024}}

Due to the closeness between Italian {{Lang|it|terra rossa}} ('red soil') and Portuguese {{Lang|pt|terra roxa}} 'purple soil', [[Italian Brazilians|Italian farmers in Brazil]] used {{Lang|pt|terra roxa}} to describe a type of soil similar to the [[terra rossa|red Mediterranean soil]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Terra roxa: origens e como cuidar do solo vermelho |url=https://summitagro.estadao.com.br/noticias-do-campo/terra-roxa-origens-e-como-cuidar-do-solo-vermelho/ |website=Canal Agro Estadão |access-date=7 May 2023 |language=pt-BR |date=7 March 2022}}</ref> The actual Portuguese word for "red" is {{Lang|pt|vermelha}}. Nevertheless, ''{{Lang|pt|terra roxa}}'' and ''{{Lang|pt|terra vermelha}}'' are still used interchangeably in Brazilian agriculture.<ref>{{cite web |title=Conheça as características da terra roxa ou terra vermelha |url=https://www.canalrural.com.br/noticias/conheca-caracteristicas-terra-roxa-terra-vermelha-53932/ |website=Canal Rural |language=pt-BR |date=13 December 2014}}</ref>

[[Quebec French]] is also known for shifting the meanings of some words toward those of their English cognates, but such words are considered false friends in European French. For example, {{Lang|fr|éventuellement}} is commonly used as "eventually" in Quebec but means "perhaps" in Europe.

This phenomenon is analyzed by [[Ghil'ad Zuckermann]] as "(incestuous) [[phono-semantic matching]]".<ref>{{cite book |page=102 |first=Ghil'ad |last=Zuckermann |year=2003 |url=http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?is=140391723X |title=Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew |publisher=Houndmills: [[Palgrave Macmillan]], (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change, Series editor: Charles Jones) |isbn=978-1-4039-1723-2 |access-date=2008-09-17 |archive-date=2014-02-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201235515/http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?is=140391723X |url-status=dead }}</ref>