Aspects of Deceptive Cognate Derived Loanwords in Kinyarwanda

Loanwords derived from French and English deceptive cognates or false friends have caught the researcher‟s attention because of the complexity they present in the areas of language contact and language teaching and learning. Deceptive cognates very often constitute obstacles to the understanding of the meaning and the pronunciation of a word because they have tricky similarities. In Rwanda where most English learners have already acquired French as Target Language 2, the use of the right word in English (Target Language 3) is a serious threat to communication. The tendency is to consider the meaning, the pronunciation of an English word as that of a French word, especially when both words have the same spelling. The complexity of deceptive cognates in a bilingual education system results from the position France and the United Kingdom have played in the history of the world since both countries have had two distinct educational systems. Teaching and learning deceptive cognates in a bilingual education system is challenging, though, especially with non-native students currently learning French and English in Rwanda. Therefore, researchers should carefully study these words that morphologically resemble in both languages but have a different meaning. Bilingual learners of French and English will face a big challenge in learning deceptive cognates until they possess a high command of the two languages, they will face serious obstacles in mastering deceptive cognates or false friends.

Keywords: loanwords language contact, loanwords, sociolinguistics, allocation, deceptive cognates, aspects.