The syntax and controls are indeed very similar.
If you know any XAML, you’ll have zero issues using the rest of them. Speaking from experience, I started with Silverlight a decade ago, had no problems switching to others.
But the underlying tech is very different. Early Silverlight rendered on CPU, WPF is based on DirectX 9, UWP uses Direct3D 11. Silverlight and WPF are .NET based, WinRT and UWP are not, they’re 100% native code, exposed to .NET through COM interop.