If you know one, you already know some of the other
55 pairs where words are written identically and mean the same thing, inside the two thousand each language uses most. Sorted by how much they share.
- Bosnian and Serbian 1,885 words
- Bosnian and Croatian 1,811 words
- Croatian and Serbian 1,728 words
- Indonesian and Malay 372 words
- Danish and Norwegian 326 words
- Galician and Portuguese 288 words
- Galician and Spanish 261 words
- Czech and Slovak 256 words
- Bulgarian and Macedonian 186 words
- Portuguese and Spanish 167 words
- Croatian and Slovenian 162 words
- Russian and Ukrainian 161 words
- Afrikaans and Dutch 153 words
- Serbian and Slovenian 153 words
- Bosnian and Slovenian 150 words
- Norwegian and Swedish 118 words
- Persian and Urdu 107 words
- Danish and Swedish 91 words
- Catalan and Spanish 89 words
- Catalan and Galician 82 words
- Catalan and Portuguese 81 words
- Bulgarian and Russian 77 words
- Slovak and Slovenian 75 words
- Macedonian and Russian 62 words
- Serbian and Slovak 60 words
- Catalan and French 58 words
- Croatian and Slovak 58 words
- Bosnian and Slovak 57 words
- Croatian and Czech 54 words
- Bulgarian and Ukrainian 53 words
- Macedonian and Ukrainian 53 words
- Bosnian and Czech 52 words
- Czech and Serbian 52 words
- Italian and Spanish 44 words
- Czech and Polish 42 words
- Italian and Portuguese 41 words
- Czech and Slovenian 40 words
- Dutch and German 37 words
- Galician and Italian 37 words
- Polish and Slovak 36 words
- Afrikaans and German 31 words
- Catalan and Romanian 30 words
- Bosnian and Polish 28 words
- Danish and Dutch 28 words
- Polish and Serbian 28 words
- Croatian and Polish 26 words
- Catalan and Italian 25 words
- Estonian and Finnish 25 words
- Danish and German 23 words
- French and Romanian 23 words
- Italian and Romanian 23 words
- Arabic and Persian 21 words
- Spanish and Tagalog 21 words
- Albanian and Bosnian 20 words
- Albanian and Croatian 20 words
A shared word is not proof of a shared root โ two languages can reach the same spelling by borrowing from a third. The measure here is strict on purpose: the word has to be written the same and carry the same meaning in both lists. Spelling alone would put Turkish and Spanish at fifty shared words, and every one of them a coincidence.