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The Czech Language Main page > Jokes and games > Chou-cabbages | 
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The Czech Language Main page > Jokes and games > Chou-cabbages |
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In the area of homonymy as a totally accidental identity of form and difference in meaning, Czech has interesting relations to other languages. Colloquially, such inter-language homonymy is referred to as 'chou-cabbages' (French 'chou' means 'cabbage' in English but it is pronounced roughly the same as English 'shoe' with a totally different meaning). In spoken as well as in written language Czech has words and even phrases which are homonymous with English, German, French (and other lanugages') words and/or phrases. Try to extend the following list we offer here:
Czech - English spoken chou-cabbages:
| Czech | meaning (without guarantee) | English |
| buk | beech | book |
| býk | bull | beak |
| brouk | beatle | broke |
| lest | artifice | lest |
| líp | better | leap |
| luk | bow | look |
| pýr | couch-grass | pear (also peer) |
| pípl | chirped | people |
| plenty | screens | plenty |
| stem | with a hundred | stem |
| tuk | fat | took |
Czech - English written chou-cabbages:
Only Czech versions are listed, English words are the same
| Czech | meaning (without guarantee) |
| lest | artifice |
| plenty | screens |
| stem | with a hundred |
| body | points |
A lot of another Czech - English written chou-cabbages is available.
Also, whole sentences can be formed out of these words as the following sentence and the whole story demonstrate:
Pípl brouk - People broke
Another fascinating long chou-cabbage was written by Martin Bloch.
Czech - German written chou-cabbages:
Milan (Czech proper name) - Milan (means 'buzzard' in German)
strom - Strom
kost - Kost
In spoken language there is an interesting following chou-cabbage triple:
kost - cost - Kost (Ger.)
Renata Blatná, Vladimír Petkevič, ©2001
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