31 January 2021, Sunday

My comment in an online group on linguistic coincidences.

When visiting İstanbul, a friend and I would refer to the area around a prominent street with the same name as the street itself, so to us, there was an area called İstiklal Caddesi (from Arabic جادة). When we visited Marrakesh, we noted a neighborhood called, with French orthography, Cadi Ayyad (from Arabic قاضي‎), named after the famous scholar. My friend was under the impression that an area or neighborhood can be called cadde or cadi and that the words must be cognates, when in fact they are unrelated and are pronounced quite differently despite the similar spelling.