Languages!

so...since we always have so much fun on the forum learning (or ruining) new languages...how about doing it here! well i speak english and spanish and im interested on learning finnish, portuguese, japanese and some more that i don't recall now ...but i don't care about learning a little of everything

let's start!

Tarja é a melhor = Tarja is the best

What do you want learn in portuguese?

I speak German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, a bit of Catalan, Italian and French...lol

^Wow!

Something that everybody have to learn in Portuguese and say in Argentina:

Pelé é melhor que Maradona!
Pelé is better than Maradona!

Daniela learned that very well!

icare4u wrote:

I speak German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, a bit of Catalan, Italian and French...lol

Myla wrote:

Something that everybody have to learn in Portuguese and say in Argentina:

Pelé é melhor que Maradona!
Pelé is better than Maradona!

Daniela learned that very well!

ahem...

Obscured wrote:

icare4u wrote:

I speak German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, a bit of Catalan, Italian and French...lol

sorry, I just love languages...lol

I'd like to speak German and Finnish! *__*

gosh, i hate being American when languages are involved. sadly, i am only fluent in English. i speak a bit of French and am currently learning German. and i have an on again off again affair with Finnish. it is my life goal to learn it no matter how difficult it may be!

I'd like to speak Finnish and Latim...

I also want to learn Finnish..lol..and Icelandic, Estonian, Romanian, Arabic, etc...lol

Have you guys tried this website? It's pretty cool. http://www.livemocha.com/

they have minimal mistakes when translating to spanish...for example they write free as the meaning of freedom when it is supposed to mean that it is free of charge

I speak Romanian, English, French, Spanish, Castilian (I think...I mean I can understand it almost perfectly, but I'm not sure if I can make up complete phrases by myself... and the same goes with Portuguese).

Myla wrote:

I'd like to speak German and Finnish! *__*

+1...

Suomi_Rocks wrote:

I speak Romanian, English, French, Spanish, Castilian (I think...I mean I can understand it almost perfectly, but I'm not sure if I can make up complete phrases by myself... and the same goes with Portuguese).

Myla wrote:

I'd like to speak German and Finnish! *__*

+1...

What do you mean by Castilian? Castilian (Castellano) is Spanish...Since Spain has 4 languages: Spanish (Castellano), Catalan, Gallego and Basque; they use Castilian to refer to the Spanish language, since Spanish then could also refer to the people or be used as a general term for everything refering to Spain.

icare4u wrote:

What do you mean by Castilian? Castilian (Castellano) is Spanish...Since Spain has 4 languages: Spanish (Castellano), Catalan, Gallego and Basque; they use Castilian to refer to the Spanish language, since Spanish then could also refer to the people or be used as a general term for everything refering to Spain.

I meant that language spoken in Argentina, with the slightly Italian accent... I didn't know that Castilian is actually Spanish, really, now I see everything in a whole new light! LOL
I read "the official language of Argentina is Spanish, usually called castellano (Castilian) by Argentines" and I was like oh, that's it. I had just got the whole thing with the regional languages wrong..

Argentinians speak Argentinian Spanish, in the same way as Mexicans speak Mexican Spanish or Peruvians speak Peruvian Spanish..lol...etc
Argentina had lots of influences from Italy, and maybe also from Brasil or USA, not sure, but their version of "tu" (vos) is similar to the American "you" or the Brazilian "você".

Generally you could say that "Spanish" is everything that comes from Spain, and Castilian is the language...but most of the times they refer to the language simply as Spanish.

In Spain and in some parts of the Spanish speaking world, but not all, Spanish is called castellano (Castilian) as well as español (Spanish), that is, the language of the Castile region, contrasting it with other three languages spoken in Spain such as Galician (proto-Portuguese), Basque, and Catalan. In this manner, the Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole Spanish State, as opposed to las demás lenguas españolas (lit. the rest of the Spanish languages). Article III reads as follows:

El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. (…) Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas…

Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. (…) The rest of the Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities…

I'm a trained linguist, but unfortunately that doesn't mean that I actually speak more languages than a regular person, although I'd certainly have an advantage learning a new language if I really devoted myself to it. I consider Bavarian as my native language, German as my "culture language" and English as the lingua franca around teh interwebz. I've studied Italian at school and achieved a quite useful level but my skills are now dormant since I rarely get to be around people who speak Italian. *sob*

My Spanish never actually was that good although I can read it pretty well, and I've taught myself a bit of French that has come in handy at times. Also through school, I've got a smattering of Russian. I have a basic understanding of Portuguese and Dutch but mainly through translingual competence.

icare4u wrote:

Argentinians speak Argentinian Spanish, in the same way as Mexicans speak Mexican Spanish or Peruvians speak Peruvian Spanish..lol...etc
Argentina had lots of influences from Italy, and maybe also from Brasil or USA, not sure, but their version of "tu" (vos) is similar to the American "you" or the Brazilian "você".

The Italian influence does not concern Argentina in general, but only the area bordering the Río de la Plata, including Uruguay.

It is a very interesting phenomenon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rioplatense_Spanish#Intonation

http://www.lsrl.uiuc.edu/abstracts/stewart.pdf

So is the voseo, of course. To understand how that phenomenon came about, you'd need to go all the way back to medieval Old Spanish ...

icare4u wrote:

Galician (proto-Portuguese),

Just a remark: Modern Galician is neither proto-Portuguese, nor is it a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish as some people believe.

What experts call "Proto-Portuguese" is the medieval language in the period between the 9th to 12th centuries, when written documents still showed a kind of medieval Latin mixed with Portuguese elements (although the popular spoken language was already firmly Portuguese) and the later dialect differences between the north and south didn't exist yet, basically because there wasn't a "south" yet. (People in what is now southern Portugal spoke now extinct Romance dialects different from Portuguese, as well as Arabic.)

A Portuguese friend who is also a linguist has told me that Northern Portuguese dialects are more different from Standard Portuguese (based on southern Portuguese dialects as are spoken, for example, in Lisbon) than they are from Galician. Linguistically, Galician, just like the so-called Eonavian, is simply Portuguese, despite some influences from Castilian Spanish, or Asturian, and attempts to make them artificially appear "un-Portuguese" by using spelling conventions based on Spanish or Asturian when writing them. But that is a matter of politics rather than linguistics. National and linguistic boundaries very rarely coincide.

The thing with the proto-Portuguese came from Wikipedia, lol, honestly I didn't know what that was..interesting.
All I know is that Galician has similarities to Portuguese.

Well, the Italian influence in Argentina, from what I can tell, many Argentinian people have Italian surnames..
and the pronunciation maybe of "Yo" as "sho"...

icare4u wrote:

The thing with the proto-Portuguese came from Wikipedia, lol, honestly I didn't know what that was..interesting.

Hmm, you seem to have misunderstood something then.

icare4u wrote:

All I know is that Galician has similarities to Portuguese.

"It has similarities" is a bit weak and overly general, don't you think? Eventually, all languages have some similarities to each other

Have you ever read anything in Galician, or heard it spoken?

It's most certainly just as different from medieval Portuguese than modern Portuguese is, if not a bit more in fact, but its "Portuguese-ness" is impossible to miss (unless you're so biased that you wouldn't even see what's right in front of your eyes, like some nationalists). The differences are, from what I've seen, truly minimal and pale in comparison to the differences between, say, German dialects. It seems to me that the differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese can even be greater if you take some really broad dialects.

Don't get me wrong, I don't intend to berate you personally, it's just that that political/nationalist nonsense is one of my pet hates.

icare4u wrote:

Well, the Italian influence in Argentina, from what I can tell, many Argentinian people have Italian surnames..
and the pronunciation maybe of "Yo" as "sho"...

But also the sing-song intonation, as pointed out in the links.

Almagest wrote:

icare4u wrote:

The thing with the proto-Portuguese came from Wikipedia, lol, honestly I didn't know what that was..interesting.

Hmm, you seem to have misunderstood something then.

The first sentence I wrote meant that I found the expression "proto-Portuguese" on Wikipedia and didn't know what it meant..lol
The second part refers to what you wrote about Galician and proto-Portuguese, that it was interesting what you wrote...

Almagest wrote:

icare4u wrote:

All I know is that Galician has similarities to Portuguese.

"It has similarities" is a bit weak and overly general, don't you think? Eventually, all languages have some similarities to each other

Have you ever read anything in Galician, or heard it spoken?

It's most certainly just as different from medieval Portuguese than modern Portuguese is, if not a bit more in fact, but its "Portuguese-ness" is impossible to miss (unless you're so biased that you wouldn't even see what's right in front of your eyes, like some nationalists). The differences are, from what I've seen, truly minimal and pale in comparison to the differences between, say, German dialects. It seems to me that the differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese can even be greater if you take some really broad dialects.

Don't get me wrong, I don't intend to berate you personally, it's just that that political/nationalist nonsense is one of my pet hates.

Yep, I did read things in Galician already, and once I even confused it with Portuguese...lol
I've been to a concert with music in Galician also
And there is a band called Xerion, from Galicia, and they sing in Galician
I think one song is called "Onde a victoria agarda" or something like that...

Almagest wrote:

icare4u wrote:

Well, the Italian influence in Argentina, from what I can tell, many Argentinian people have Italian surnames..
and the pronunciation maybe of "Yo" as "sho"...

But also the sing-song intonation, as pointed out in the links.

Yeah, well, I just wanted to explain that they still speak Spanish, and that their way of speaking Spanish is pretty different from Mexican Spanish for example...and that Castilian is another word for Spanish, and doesn't only refer to the Spanish spoken in Argentina.

icare4u wrote:

Yep, I did read things in Galician already, and once I even confused it with Portuguese...lol

I'm trying to say that Galician is basically part of the Northern Portuguese dialect area. It's like Portuguese spelled in Spanish fashion. There are a few special changes in pronunciation that mirror what Spanish went through in the 16th century, but overall its Portuguese character is still overwhelmingly clear.

I mean, you could spell Argentinian Spanish like Portuguese and it would still be Spanish ^^ It's just a trick to make people believe a language is more different from another than it really is, and it's quite silly.

So saying that you once confused Galician with Portuguese doesn't quite cut it because it IS Portuguese, essentially. Don't allow cheap tricks to confuse you.

Standard Portuguese and Standard Galician are just two points in a very close-knit dialect continuum, and if Northern Portuguese dialects within Portugal are accepted as part of Portuguese, it doesn't make any sense to exclude Galician, linguistically, because they are just as different from the standard written language, or the Lisbon dialect (but not actually that much different). If there wasn't a state border in between, no one would even get the idea that Galician is not Portuguese, the thought would be considered crazy, because the closeness is so plain to see.

As I said, it's all just politics; artificial divisiveness - like between Romanian and Moldavian, or Bulgarian and Macedonian, or Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian, or Hindi and Urdu, or Farsi (Persian of Iran), Afghan Persian and Tajik, or Indonesian Malay and Malaysian Malay - to promote some ulterior political goal. Divide and rule.

I say it's essentially a form of real-world conlanging, only a rather unimaginative form thereof.

icare4u wrote:

Yeah, well, I just wanted to explain that they still speak Spanish, and that their way of speaking Spanish is pretty different from Mexican Spanish for example...and that Castilian is another word for Spanish, and doesn't only refer to the Spanish spoken in Argentina.

That's true, of course.

I've read that Argentinian Spanish tends very much to closed syllables and has a tendency to weaken the consonants ... while on the other hand Mexican Spanish rather tends to weaken the vowels. Which could be an influence from English. I don't know. Chilean Spanish is also rather peculiar.

OK, I'll just try to explain the blond/blonde issue here, where it should be less distracting.

English is a language that doesn't have grammatical gender at all (nor grammatical word classes in general), but it does have natural gender (sex; i. e. based on the biological sex, not some arbitrary assignment that you have learn by heart, as part of the lexicon) in a rather limited area, in that it distinguishes male and female forms in personal pronouns of the 3rd person singular, and also some nouns, for example:

man/woman
mother/father
brother/sister
husband/wife

king/queen
god/goddess
actor/actress
hero/heroine

In some of these cases, there are even gender-neutral words: "person", "parent", "sibling", "spouse", "deity".

While many people seem to use "blond"/"blonde" indiscriminately, it makes sense to treat it as another such pair, reserving "blond" to mean "blond man" and "blonde" to mean "blond woman" (and using "blond person" as a gender-neutral term if needed), as both words are ultimately borrowed from French where "blond" is the male and "blonde" the female form.

(I acknowledge that both are pronounced the same, which is a bit unfortunate. If that is an objection, I'd recommend using the form without the "e" that is never pronounced, anyway.)

However, one area where English absolutely does not make any gender distinctions is in adjectives. Again, many people seem to use both forms indiscriminately, I recommend using "blond" and avoiding "blonde" because it can make it seem as if you were trying to introduce gender distinctions into English in an area where they are absolutely alien to it, namely in adjectives, applying "blond" when talking about men and "blonde" when talking about women. That is certainly an unnecessary complication.

I realise this is a form of linguistic prescription which is frowned upon by many linguists nowadays, but since this is a grey area, as you said, Tosca, and mainly a question of spelling, an area even where dictionary entries like the one you linked to are inaccurate, in my opinion, even if they ultimately reflect a real-world confusion, but a case that can be systematised neatly as just proposed. I find having two spellings side by side without any rule to govern their use pretty annoying, especially in view of the French origin.

I dunno why Tosca used "blonde" but I myself do it because I'm used to it in French. And it looks nice.

Yeah, she said she did it for the same reason. Ultimately, it is just a matter of taste, but I find the spelling without "e" more logical.