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McWhorter, J. [PhD Linguistics
(Stanford)](https://americanstudies.columbia.edu/people/john-h-mcwhorter).
[_The Power of Babel_
(2003)](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/006052085X). p. 293 Bottom.

> For example, the words in Thai for _fire_ , _die_ , and _rim_ are _faj_ ,
> _taaj_ , and _rim_ , just by accident! Long lists have been composed of
> correspondences like this between hopelessly disparate languages; it can be
> almost funny. According to the Proto-World advocates’ modus operandi-
> allowance for stark differences in word shape and a permissive position on
> what constitutes related meaning— English and Japanese could be shown to
> have a historical relationship according to these words I have always
> noticed:
>
> [![enter image description
> here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zRBmv.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zRBmv.jpg)

Please see the red arrow for
[あつい](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%82%E3%81%A4%E3%81%84#Japanese). I
can't replicate tables quickly with Markdown.
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sound-symbolism
How does atsui (あつい) sound like English 'hot'?
In speech, the word あつい can be pronounced like あちぃ, あっちぃ, あちちち, あっつー, あちぇー,
あっつぇー, あちゃちゃちゃ and so on (see
[this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/18458/5010) and
[this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/21420/5010)). However I don't know
what [ott-SOO-ee] represents, and IMHO no variation of あつい sounds even close
to English "hot".

While Japanese _namae_ vs English _name_ is a famous example of [false
cognate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_cognate), this list includes many
obviously far-fetched examples. I don't think you should take them too
seriously.
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answer
Note the author's pronunciation guide [ott-SOO-ee] is only on the word あつい. He
is indicating that the sound of "hot" and あつい are similar because of the "ott"
sound. To see the similarity, try saying 「hotつい」.
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