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[BenLubar]

I've noticed that quite a few words have ambiguous meanings between languages. This is to be expected. However, several words have multiple (sometimes unrelated) meanings in the same language:

ûd means "chaos" or "to scale" in goblin
ìle means "beast" or "vigor" in elf
iÿe means "bewilder" or "bold" in elf
ûst means "cheerful" or "knot" in goblin
ûn means "courtesy" or "to fly" in goblin
èna means "deep" or "elbow" in elf
eÿi means "droop" or "gleam" in elf
åm means "baby" or "yawn" in dwarf
èle means "ball" or "stray" in elf
oslê means "banner" or "glade" in goblin
âs means "master" or "tall" in goblin

Here's a list of words and their meanings in each language, sorted by the number of meanings for a word: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=syk2j3Qq

[wierd]

This is not that uncommon, especially in languages that have limited phonemes to work with.

Take for instance, in japanese.

The same kanji can have different words, depending on how it is used. (Kun and On readings)
A single reading can be associated with MANY different kanji! (Asking a person how their name is spelled is not rude, and it usually implies that the person asking wants to know what the meaning behind the name is-- for instance.)

I note that elven and goblin both have clever word play going on with their ambiguous words that have the same spoken forms. I suspect that they would have pictographic languages that have more hidden context, much like japanese does.

[utunnels]

Well I don't know if DF has its special usage for those words.
Maybe, I guess some are used to form longer words. For example, a last name.
In real life, not all words can be translated into another language, also, the same word usually can have different meanings in different contexts (the word "seal", for instance).

[Matoro]

Kuusi means "six" and "spruce" in finnish. Probably every language has that kind of words.

[smjjames]

Kuusi means "six" and "spruce" in finnish. Probably every language has that kind of words.

Well, English has polish which is both 'to make something shiny' and 'person from Poland'. That's all I can think of off the top of my head though, there may be others. Although that seems to arise more from coincidence rather than double meaning.

Edit: Oh yeah, theres 'seal' like utunnels said.

[nasobema]

Educational fun fact: in german you call such a word "Teekesselchen", which means "little tea kettle" or (obviously) "word with a double meaning".

English (as most languages, I assume) is full of such things, which makes learning it so much FUN.

It's all about context.

[wobbly]

yeah, english has plenty, especially if you start counting things like too/two/to. But even with out counting words with different spellings there's a lot. I could give some examples or you could just look at the posts above me . Heck there's at least 3 in the original post. Probably more if I look closer.

Edit: bloody 'ell how many meanings does the word scale have. I thought there was only 3 when I first looked at it but: fish scale, scales to measure weight, mathematical scale, musical scale, scale a cliff ....

[Wimopy]

ìle means "beast" or "vigor" in elf
âs means "master" or "tall" in goblin

Those two make perfect sense. A beast is vigorous, especially for an elf who respects nature.
For goblins, their masters probably lead by strength, which can be associated with height.

You can take it as a strange culture thing or completely natural. Most of the time you won't be confusing the two meanings.

Oh yeah,

åm means "baby" or "yawn" in dwarf

Babies sleep a lot. Dwarven babies probably moreso. And I can imagine that a small baby who has a thick beard needs to open its mouth to take in a lot of air at times.

[samanato]

Homonyms with unrelated meanings are a very common occurence in languages, I suspect most languages have a few.  This happens often when sound changes make two once distinct roots sound alike. Mandarin is the most extensive example of this (even with the tones!) which eventually led to the majority of words being two-syllable compounds to disambiguate the meanings.

Adding to the example of Japanese, one example I recall are 16 different words, written with different kanji (and with different pronunciations in Middle Chinese) all having the same reading kankou. Japanese has no tones and fewer phonemes than Chinese, so all of the different pronunciations are collapsed into the closest fit, when words are borrowed. Even native Japanese words can be very homonymous, especially the verbs - e.g. iru, which can mean 'exist', 'shoot', 'need', 'enter', 'coin', and 'boil', depending on the kanji. Having such a limited phoneme range and a restrictive syllabic structure does that.

[Edward_Tohr]

It really is a common thing across multiple languages.

I mean, if you fishbone instrument is good at the deep, low tones, wouldn't you call it a bass bass?

[Uronym]

English has many homographs (though not as many as Japanese, as others have noted). Some words have a long list of potentially related or unrelated meanings; here are just a few:

bar
- excepting
- to prevent
- a long block
- a long cylinder

bat
- to flutter (eyelashes)
- a flying mouse-like animal
- something you hit a ball with
- to hit something with a bat
- to just hit something with a non-bat object

bow
- to submit
- something bent
- to lower the body in respect
- a ranged weapon that shoots arrows
- a decorative ribbon worn on the body
- a stick used to play a string instrument

foot
- to pay
- the bottom
- a primitive measurement
- a body part at the end of a leg

well
- good
- healthy
- a water source
- to release some liquid
- a source of anything else
- a word people just throw into sentences randomly

Usually, of course, it doesn't matter, because context tells you everything you need to know. If your list tells us anything, it's that the Dwarf Fortress languages have less homographs than most languages do, and those homographs have a very short list of potential meanings.

[RenoFox]

Kuusi means "six" and "spruce" in finnish. Probably every language has that kind of words.

Futhermore, the phrase "kuusi palaa" can mean "six pieces", "spruce returns" or "your moon is on fire".

[Wimopy]

Kuusi means "six" and "spruce" in finnish. Probably every language has that kind of words.

Futhermore, the phrase "kuusi palaa" can mean "six pieces", "spruce returns" or "your moon is on fire".

Pretty sure the last two aren't actually used much though, even though I don't speak Finnish.
Or do you often light each other's moons on fire? Do your trees come back on their own after leaving?

[smjjames]

Kuusi means "six" and "spruce" in finnish. Probably every language has that kind of words.

Futhermore, the phrase "kuusi palaa" can mean "six pieces", "spruce returns" or "your moon is on fire".

Pretty sure the last two aren't actually used much though, even though I don't speak Finnish.
Or do you often light each other's moons on fire? Do your trees come back on their own after leaving?

He (or She if that's the case) is just giving an example of how it can have different meanings depending on the intonation or something.

[Wimopy]

-quotes snipped to avoid pyramid-

Yeah, I know. Just funny to imagine that causing any sort of confusion when speaking.