Does Russian sounds like Portuguese?

Aszykbajew   Mon Jul 20, 2009 4:44 pm GMT
This might be an offensive joke to the Portuguese, Russians and Poles, but I'll tell it anyway.

What would happen if Portugal underwent a massive language reform, effectively separating Brazil from Portugal?

I wonder if the rules that will regularise the ortography look like this:

All those -itos will be written like Polish -icz;

words ending with -so/se is simply s;

All historical unstressed e sounding like Polish y is written as y;

All u that have shifted to ypsilon will be written as ui;

All unstressed o is written as u;

Open o has no sign but the hat of the closed o will remain;

All vowels left out will be gone in writing;

All the ch, historical -s and -z will be Polish sz whist j is written as z with dot on top;

All consonants beside the closed e and real i will be softened, for it sounds like Polish je/ie and i;

All dark l will be written as ł and light/softened l is normal l;

Palatized digraphs remain(lh, nh);

ts is written as c;

All initial r or -rr- will be written as ch;

Nasal vowels with the tildes are just the way they are;

Nasalized vowels marked with a final m/n will be written using an ogonek in place of m/n;

a will have two values: a and schwa.

In that way, Portuguese will really look like a mutant form of Slavic language with Latin Grammar, though Romanian has Slavic words.
no name   Mon Jul 20, 2009 4:49 pm GMT
where is better to study Portuguese and Spanish, Rio or Sao Paulo? where is it nicer to take a walk, relax and have fun?
Guest   Mon Jul 20, 2009 5:00 pm GMT
Rio easily.
Kelly   Mon Jul 20, 2009 6:28 pm GMT
where is better to study Portuguese and Spanish, Rio or Sao Paulo?

//This is like asking: where is better to study English: New Orleans or NYC?
Neither, New Orleans, NYC, Rio and SP have thick accents.

Neutral accents in Brazil are used in Brasília (the capital), Vitória (Espírito Santo State), Santos (SP state), Paraty (Rio state)...
http://www.learningportuguese.co.uk/countries/brazil.html

Vitória and Brasília have the least accented/marked accent, comparable to San Francisco or Denver in the US.
Joao   Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:55 pm GMT
Aszykbajew, speaking a language simmilar to Russian, Polish or whatever means nothing for us. Portuguese is not simmilar to Slavic languages. It simply has no influences in words or grammar. The fact that the sounds of each other remind of the other is a mere coincidence.

It's not offensive because we simply do not have those complexes seen on the other side of Europe. We have nothing against Russians or whoever it is. We simply do not know them enough to start being prejudiced against peoples from Eastern Europe. It is the only area in the world where we weren't, and between 1926 and 1974, not only Eastern Europeans could not travel to the west, the Portuguese were not allowed to visit any Communist country (we had a fascist dictatorship).

I am sure that Russia is a great country but with people that suffered a lot in the past. One thing however is to criticize Russia's foreign policy, another is to bash on its people or in any other people.

I think it could be offensive for you to be seen as Russian, Polish, Bulgarian or Albanian. Your comments just mirror your own complexes, not ours.
Il Ce   Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:17 am GMT
Portuguese does sound like Russian.
Aszykbajew   Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:26 am GMT
Thanks for some info about the coincidence and some history.

Well, it's not really offensive. But it's the language that sounds like Russian, Polish, Bulgarian and Albanian by phonemes.

Most native speakers from almost all Latin countries and all Germanic countries can't stomach the complex consonant clusters like prtg-, sbszt-, szcz.

Some consonant clusters present in Slavonic languages are -fn-, -czn-, -żn- and the like sound like they're pesent in Portuguese.

The complex consonant clusters may be due to leaving out all unstressed vowels. A Galician said that Portuguese sounds like many vowels are deleted, making it sound like Russian and sounding like "dobrsh vulk dbrich bzhpshek mientnik" to many untrained ears, including mine.

I'm interested in your language since, like Slavonic languages, it's hard to pronounce!
J.C.   Wed Jul 22, 2009 5:33 am GMT
"where is better to study Portuguese and Spanish, Rio or Sao Paulo? where is it nicer to take a walk, relax and have fun?"

@noname:
If you want to enjoy a city that has an active nightlife and is international I'd say you should study in São Paulo but I think that people are a little uptight and seem to be too busy to give you attention.

On the other hand, if you like a HOT weather (20º C in winter and 40º C in summer), beautiful beaches and laidback people Rio is the place to be. In my opinion to speak like a Carioca is like being a "californian". Also, since people LOVE to talk it's a nice place to learn FAST.

However, if you talk like a CARIOCA you'll probably be hated by the PAULISTAS and the other way around. But who cares? I think it's better to have character in your accent than sounding like everybody else, specially in a country where there's NO standard language DE FACTO.

Whatever your choice is make sure you HAVE FUN while learning the language!!!

Cheers!!
bebe   Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:07 pm GMT
żn= les genoux en français. c'est la meme chose.
[leżnu]
Aszykbajew   Thu Jul 23, 2009 3:43 am GMT
to bebe:

Ah... I might have been mistaken, but these Portuguese guys can speak those weird consonant clusters.

I can only read and get gist of French and German through English, but not speak/write it.

Portuguese from Portugal is stress-timed, which makes it sound like a Slavic language.

Russian is definitely stress-timed whilst Polish and Bulgarian is stress-timed with mixed rhythm. Albanian sounds stress-timed.
Aszykbajew   Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:14 am GMT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q21x-80LTyo&feature=related

Sample of Albanian

It can sound like Portuguese or English or the Eastern European languages.
JGreco   Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:09 am GMT
Albanian to me almost sounds like a hybrid Romance language. There were a few words I could understand. The reporter used a lot of the English like "r", but upon listening to other youtube videos from her broadcasts, other interviewees used mainly a rolled "r". Very fascinating.
Aszykbajew   Mon Jul 27, 2009 4:30 am GMT
http://www.brazzilbrief.com/viewtopic.php?p=333545&sid=b8fa5daddc54f314e1a4695a8a2d04ff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOK0HPFe2Gs

The first reporter in youtube spoke in a subdued Northern Portuguese Accent. But all the rest spoke something sounding like Polish, Russian or Bulgarian accent that it could be mistaken for their Wriemię/Dziennik.

The female reporter has an accent sounding like the man speaking in this Polish Ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxeW0B5Pjdk
Aszykbajew   Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:27 pm GMT
http://www.alphadictionary.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1001

In end of forum, Amerikaniec commented on it.
bona   Tue Jul 28, 2009 7:04 pm GMT
Russian sounds like Turkic languages,but not like Portuguese.