What language is easiest for Spanish Speakers to understand?

Gringo : oui, car la classification d'Ethnologue paraît discutable pour plusieurs raisons —>

1/ les langues d'Oc sont rangées dans le groupe ibéro-roman, c'est-à-dire avec le castillan

2/ la parenté entre langues d'Oc et langues catalanes n'apparaît pas.





http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/francophonie/images/romania-mapa.gif

Sur la carte ci-dessus, la Romanie centrale regroupe les langues catalanes, les langues d'Oc et les langues gallo-italiques.

Le castillan fait partie de la Romanie ibérique (au sens linguistique de cet adjectif).

Greg
In your map it also does not show the relationship of Catalan with the other Iberian languages.
There are many ways of classifying a language according to different set of criteria. Grouping the languages in a family is a matter of what you want to emphasise.
I think that with Catalan it is important to show that it is not only related with Ibero-romance languages but also with the languages d'Oc.
Any way, both maps are correct. It is just a matter of choosing a map that shows the relationship you want.

««les langues d'Oc sont rangées dans le groupe ibéro-roman»»

Yes, but under Gallo-Iberian.

Sorry Greg the above message was mine, I did not pay attention.

The Potuguese spoken in Brazil is not the same as the Portuguese they teach in Brazlian schools, here is a quote from Mário A. Perini, a famous Brazilian linguist:

"There are two languages in Brazil. The one we write (and which is called "Portuguese"), and another one that we speak (which is so despised that there is not a name to call it). The latter is the mother tongue of Brazilians, the former has to be learned in school, and a majority of population does not manage to master it appropriately.... Personally, I do not object to us writing Portuguese, but I think it is important to make clear that Portuguese is (at least in Brazil) only a written language. Our mother tongue is not Portuguese, but Brazilian Vernacular. This is not a slogan, nor a political statement, it is simply recognition of a fact.... There are linguistic teams working hard in order to give the full description of the structure of the Vernacular. So, there are hopes, that within some years, we will have appropriate grammars of our mother tongue, the language that has been ignored, denied and despised for such a long time."

Well, yes, the situation in Brazil is similar to the one in Switzerland.
Although Portuguese is the official language, the spoken one is 100% Brazilian, and you won't find any ''official Portuguese'' in our movies, tv series or songs...Portuguese people say our spoken language is full of mistakes...The same thing German people say of Swiss German...

Swiss people don't like standard German and we Brazilians don't like standard Portuguese (based on European Portuguese). We call it bookish language. It's never used in speaking. It's sounds like ''It is I, Whom shall I call... in English'' DATED!

Sou Português e estou no Brasil á cerca de 3 anos. Hoje vejo a aberração e a falta de lógica que existe no Brasil sobre o que eles chamam de Lingua Portuguesa!
Respeito plenamente os valores, filosofia, ética e principios que os Brasileiros possuem. Agora dizerem ás criançinhas na escola que estão a falar Português...ai já é aberração!
Falam LIngua Brasileira......! É um Pais independente, com a sua propria cultura porque não dizer Lingua Brasileira..>>!!!!!
A Lingua Brasileira, possui as influênçias dos Indios, Portugueses, Africanos, Holandeses, Françeses e até dos Espanhois!!!!
Vejamos...eles dizem chápa majoritaria.....palavra que vem do françês MAJORITAY nos dizemos LISTA MAIORITARIA. Eles dizem trem, palavra que vem do Ingles train ...foram eles que instalaram aqui o comboio...!!! e existem milhares de exemplos como este.....! O nosso feminino de rapaz é rapariga.... aqui rapariga é prostituta,,,!!!!!!!!!!!!!! eles dizem MOUÇA..!!atenção nãe é moça!!!
E isso de dizerem que nos e os brasileiros nos compreendemos muito bem... é pura mentira! Venham falar aqui Português de Portugal e logo verão se eles entendem alguma coisa! Para me fazer compreender tenho que falar calmamente e sem pressa...senão..vem logo a palavra OIIII!!!!!... esta ainda não consegui saber de onde vem.....!
Á não se esqueçam aqui não se diz ATESTAR o deposito do carro......até tive que sair do carro para explicar o que queria... AQUI DIZ-SE COMPLETÁ...!!!!O ..R ficou no bolso, os plurais não se dizem é.. OS ÓLHO, AS ORELHA E OS ÓUVÍDU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Um abraço e cumprimentos para todos

««The Potuguese spoken in Brazil is not the same as the Portuguese they teach in Brazlian schools,
here is a quote from Mário A. Perini, a famous Brazilian linguist:»»


The Portuguese spoken in Brazil is not the same as the Portuguese spoken in Portugal
.... but it is PORTUGUESE!!!

According to a famous Portuguese linguist, Professor Lindley Cintra, the Portugues spoken in Portugal is not all the same. In Portugal people speak the :


1-dialectos galegos;
2-dialectos portugueses setentrionais;
3-dialectos portugueses centro-meridionais.


««The one we write (and which is called "Portuguese"),
and another one that we speak (which is so despised that there is not a name to call it).»»

It must have many names as there are so many regional varieties of the language.

Yes, it is very much despised , by BRAZILIANS, and the name is "hillbilly".


««Our mother tongue is not Portuguese, but Brazilian Vernacular. .»»

So, Brazilian vernacular is the PORTUGUESE that is spoken in Brazil not the PORTUGUESE that they teach in Brazil.




««There are linguistic teams working hard in order to give the full description of the structure of the Vernacular. So,
there are hopes, that within some years, we will have
appropriate grammars of our mother tongue, the language that has been ignored, denied and despised for such a long time."»»


Grammar for which vernacular?? There are so many regional variations of the language that many grammars will be needed.


Do not forget that in Brazil, (in Amazons, São Gabriel da Cachoeira) , there are three co-official native languages:

Nheengatu, Tukano and Baniwa.

Now, for the people that do not understand or speak PORTUGUESE they can speak official Brazilian languages. Of course this will make the life much easyer to the Spanish neighbour speakers, the native Indians I mean.
It also makes the life so much easier to all the Brazilian children, they soon will be able to choose to learn at school any of the 180 native languages. Of course it is not necessary that, in Brazil, everybody speaks the same language. What are dictionaries and translators for?

http://www.novomilenio.inf.br/idioma/


Of course these Brazilian native languages are not the easiest languages for Spanish speakers to understand. That would be Portuguese.



Paulo
««Sou Português e estou no Brasil á cerca de 3 anos. Hoje vejo a aberração e a falta de lógica que existe no Brasil
sobre o que eles chamam de Lingua Portuguesa!»»

Se fosses Português e estivesses no Brasil não estarias a falar tanta besteirada, já tinhas voltado para Portugal.
Os Portugueses no Brasil, ao fim de 3 anos, falam quase como os Brasileiros. Ou não vais dizer que falas o Português
de Portugal com o sotaque de Portugal ao fim de 3 anos.

««Á não se esqueçam aqui não se diz ATESTAR o deposito do carro»»

Para um Português fazer este comentario hahaha.... aqui vai outra:

Não se esqueçam que no Porto não se diz "bica" como em Lisboa mas "simbalina" mas todos dizem cafézinho.

Sim, vou acreditar que és Português, é tão mais divertido... tal como o Guest que tambem era Portugês.

I agree with you Gringo. I was actually going to say much of what you already did, so thanks for saving me the trouble. This kind of discussion has taken place many times before - this is a stale subject already. There is only 1 national language in Brazil: Portuguese (Brazilian Portuguese). Yes, it has its own unique characteristics, but so does American English, Quebec French, and Cuban Spanish. The way they speak may sound different than the speakers from the European motherlands, but they all pretty much follow the standard European written model. Brazilian Portuguese is no exception.

If you want my personal opinion, I will tell you this. Written Portuguese is very understandable, even though I'm not a native Spanish speaker, and I can understand much more Portuguese than Italian in written form. But spoken Portuguese sounds very strange, and it sounds very different from Spanish, although the two languages couldn't be closer on paper it seems.

You are right LAA, we are close in writing, but not that close when we speak because, for instance, we portuguese pronounce the same vowel diferently depending where that vowel stands in the word. We have many 'silent vowels'.

To give you a example, we write competente, competent in english and we almost dont pronounce the final 'e' because it's a silent vowel, we almost pronounce like the english do. Spanish in the other hand will pronounce the 'e' like a open vowel

"Although it was not what I was discussing with LAA, I think that in the family tree, Catalan is in the East-Iberian group. Probably you are talking about another classification."

Even If I'm not a linguist, as a speaker of French, Spanish, with some notions of Italian, catalan and occitan (nicois), I find very strange to classify the dialects of occitan in the iberian group, and in the same time the northern italian dialects in the "gallo-raomance" group. It doesn' represent the linguistic reality, and even in a geographical point of view it has no continuity.

"LAA Tue Oct 17, 2006 4:42 pm GMT
If you want my personal opinion, I will tell you this. Written Portuguese is very understandable, even though I'm not a native Spanish speaker, and I can understand much more Portuguese than Italian in written form. But spoken Portuguese sounds very strange, and it sounds very different from Spanish, although the two languages couldn't be closer on paper it seems."


What do you mean by "strange"? How do you define "strange" and "normal" sounding languages? English sounds "normal" in your eyes? In terms of phonetic proximity to Spanish or Italian? Could you explain your opinions a little bit more please? Thanks.

fab
««It doesn' represent the linguistic reality, and even in a geographical point of view it has no continuity. »»

It seems Aranese is spoken in Spain, so I think there is a geographical continuity.

Portuguese, Spanish and French are under the Gallo-Iberian group, it looks like a happy family ;o).

I do not know Catalan or Occitan to be able to have a discussion with you, but I understood that there are some criteria that made Occitan belong to the Ibero-romance sub-group. In this study there are less differences from Spanish, so I think it is one of the reasons why it is in the Ibero-Romance sub-group:

“Jules Ronjat has sought to characterize Occitan by 19 principal criteria, as generalized as possible. Of those, 11 are phonetic, five morphologic, one syntactic, and two lexical. Close vowels (French: pâte, rose, yeux) are rare or absent in Occitan. This characteristic often carries through to an Occitan speaker's French, leading to a distinctive méridional accent. Unlike French, it is a pro-drop language allowing the omission of the subject (canti: I sing; cantas you sing). Among these 19 discriminating criteria, 7 are different from Spanish, 8 from Italian, 12 from Franco-provençal, and 16 from French.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occitan_language

Anyway, there must be other studies with a different criteria for us to compare the differences.

<<What do you mean by "strange"? How do you define "strange" and "normal" sounding languages? English sounds "normal" in your eyes? In terms of phonetic proximity to Spanish or Italian? Could you explain your opinions a little bit more please? Thanks. >>

Personal taste varies from person to person. When I said Portuguese sounds "strange", it was just my personal opinion, from my experience. It sounds like a strange admixture of French, Spanish, and Slavic languages when spoken. And I can't understand very much of it when spoken, because it is so radically different from how it looks on paper, at least if you were reading it as you would in Spanish.