Portuguese - French: Spoken Intelligibility

Guest   Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:50 am GMT
Why not european portuguese?
Guest   Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:56 am GMT
That's a fair question.

I'm more familiar with Brazilian Portuguese. Until last year, I don't recall ever hearing European Portuguese at any length. Since I was not exposed to both varieties, I can't tell if I would have been able to understand EP on first hearing.
David   Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:16 am GMT
<< Romanian is extremely interesting to me as it seems like the odd language out (some think French is, but I'm not in that camp.) >>

Really??? Romanian sounds kinda like Italian to me, and should easily be understandable if the Latin doublets are used instead of the more common Slavic words.

French seems like the odd one out, in my opinion. Although Romanian is unique in that it is so close to Classical Latin. It's also cool how Sardinian and Romanian have a lot of similarities, as they were the first to break away from Vulgar Latin.
Guest   Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:30 pm GMT
Romanian sounds slavic, everyone who hears that language and doesn't know about its Romance filiation hardly would say that it sounds like Italian.
Guest   Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:43 pm GMT
Trust me, I'm Slavic; Romanian DOES NOT sound Slavic!
And stop this nonsense already.
Guest   Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:47 pm GMT
If you are Slavic you can't know how other people perceive the slavic languages and hence if Romanian sounds like it. Since you speak it you won't find similarities, but trust me, I'm a native Romance language speaker and Romanian is very different compared to the rest of languages , it sounds Slavic.
guest   Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:07 pm GMT
I would agree too that Romanian has a slight Slavic sound to it...

<<For example, Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans appear to be just three different varieties of the same language.>>

I have to disagree about Afrikaans. Afrikaans grammar is significantly different than Dutch grammar, and greatly simplified. Also, many words have corrupted as well (eg. alstublieft > aseblief; morgen > môre; over>oor, etc).

I do however agree on Dutch-Flemish...slight variation, but still basically the same. Only political.
Guest   Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:20 pm GMT
It is interesting to see how many Sefarditic Jews have preserved the Spanish language so well to the point that I can understand it relatively easily (take into account that it's the Spanish spoken 500 years ago!). Other ethnic groups would have lost their distinctive language in no more than three generations.
Guest   Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:31 pm GMT
Romanian (I'm the one who called it the odd language out) has a lot of Italian, but the grammar is a bit surprising to me. I like to compare languages and Romanian has words that startle me. Wow! What's the origin of that word? I find myself asking from time to time. Of course, there is the perception that Romanian is Slavic. It isn't of course, but are Romanians considered to be Slavic people? I don't know the answer.
Guest   Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:32 pm GMT
Sorry, I mean that Romanian has a lot of Latin, not Italian.
David   Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:11 am GMT
<< I would agree too that Romanian has a slight Slavic sound to it... >>

To me the accent sounds slightly Slavic. I've also heard some Romanians who have somewhat of an Italian-ish accent. All of the Romanian I've heard used mainly Latin derived words so it of course sounded more Romance (and therefore closer to Italian), than the more commonly spoken Romanian, which probably has innumerable Slavic borrowings.
Guest   Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:16 am GMT
Many Latin derived words in Romanian are artificially introduced in their language. Romanian used to have even more Slavic words prior to this introduction of Latin words, or French, Italian, etc.
Guest   Fri Feb 01, 2008 8:59 am GMT
<<If Catalan is mutually intelligible with Spanish, and Occitan is mutually intelligible with French, then, THEORETICALLY, shouldn't Spanish and French be mutually intelligible?>>

Catalan offers a limited mutual intelligibility with both Occitan and Castilian Spanish (full intelligibility occurs only in transitional areas). Occitan is not mutually intelligible with French.

<<Since Portuguese and French are similar in vocabulary and pronunciation, shouldn't they be more mutually intelligible than Spanish and French? Is there a good deal of spoekn intelligibility between the two languages?>>

Less than zero.

<<Trust me, I'm Slavic; Romanian DOES NOT sound Slavic! >>

That makes sense. I understand that a native Czech speaker can recognize right away that Russian, Serbian or Polish are related to his own language while Romanian is not. But to Western European ears Romanian pronunciation and prosody sound distinctively "Central/Eastern-European"

<<Many Latin derived words in Romanian are artificially introduced in their language>>

Why "artificially"? French underwent a process of academic re-latinization in the Middle-Ages, Romanian did much later (in the 19th century). This doesn't disqualify Romanian as a member of the Romance family.
Guest   Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:26 am GMT
<<That makes sense. I understand that a native Czech speaker can recognize right away that Russian, Serbian or Polish are related to his own language while Romanian is not. But to Western European ears Romanian pronunciation and prosody sound distinctively "Central/Eastern-European" <<

Fair. I was annoyed but I accept that now. I can recognize numerous Slavic loan words in Romanian, but the sound... OK if you say so.