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Lexical similarities between French-Spanish-Italian
Why is it that when someone speaks Portuguese, the Spanish speaker does not understand it and as for the Portugues speaker does understand the Spanish speaker, And they are only 89% lexical as for an Italian speaker can understand a Spanish speaker and vice versa pretty well and they are only 82%...? Why is that...? I can understand an Italian speaker, but never a portuguese... As for Italian & French 89% And I'v never heard any Italian or French understanding each other :-( But another funny thing is that being said and revised Portugese & Spanish 89% Italian & Spanish 82%, and Portugese & Italian are 0%... Being both related to Spanis in an 80%... As for French & Portugese its 75%, French & Spanish 75%, as for Spanish & Portugese 89%...?
1. Latin is related to French, Italian, Romanian, & Spanish
2. French is related to Spanish, Italian, & Latin
3. Spanish is related to Portuguese & French
4. Portuguese is related to Spanish, French, & Italian
5. Italian is related to Spanish & French
6. Romanian is related to Italian, Spanish, & French
Once again, all 5 of the romance laguages how are they all each related to Latin in lexical %...?
Alejandro wrote:
"Aldvm, how can you say that Italian and Spanish are lexically closer at 82%, when Portuguese and Spanish are lexically very, very close at 89%? If you are talking about phonetics, then be clear that you don't bring lexicon into it - it confuses things."
I wrote:
What I meant was, Italian and Spanish are closer in phonetics and lexical (not as much as Portuguese) but still relatively close....
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Rolando wrote:
"Why is it that when someone speaks Portuguese, the Spanish speaker does not understand it and as for the Portugues speaker does understand the Spanish speaker, And they are only 89% lexical as for an Italian speaker can understand a Spanish speaker and vice versa pretty well and they are only 82%...? Why is that...? I can understand an Italian speaker, but never a portuguese... As for Italian & French 89% And I'v never heard any Italian or French understanding each other :-( But another funny thing is that being said and revised Portugese & Spanish 89% Italian & Spanish 82%, and Portugese & Italian are 0%... Being both related to Spanis in an 80%... As for French & Portugese its 75%, French & Spanish 75%, as for Spanish & Portugese 89%...? "
I wrote:
Great observation. I think (and perhaps others) that phonology pays a HUGE part in intelligibility. It's an intuitive response.....Another great example would be GREEK, because, Greek is phonetical like Italian and Spanish. So one would be able to comprehend "Greek" to some extent.
Example:
Ti enai afto? Enai ena vivlio astronomias. Ena vivlio gia t'astra ke tous planites. (griego-moderno)
¿Qué es esto? Es un libro de astronomía. Un libro sobre las estrellas y planetas. (español)
Che è questo? È un libro d'astronomia. Un libro delle stelle ed i pianeti. (italiano)
You forgot to include Portuguese in these sentence examples Aldvm. so I included it below.
Ti enai afto? Enai ena vivlio astronomias. Ena vivlio gia t'astra ke tous planites. (griego-moderno)
¿Qué es esto? Es un libro de astronomía. Un libro sobre las estrellas y planetas. (español)
O Que e isto? E um livro de astronomia. Um livro sobre as estrelas e planetas. (Portugues)
Che è questo? È un libro d'astronomia. Un libro delle stelle ed i pianeti. (italiano)
Rolando, you said, "But another funny thing is that being said and revised Portugese & Spanish 89% Italian & Spanish 82%, and Portugese & Italian are 0%..."
Portuguese and Italian are 0% intelligible according to who exactly?????? With all due respect Rolando, is anyone supposed to believe this just on your 'say so'?
Listen, I've got many Portuguese friends, and I understand them all just fine. I think there is something most of you have overlooked during this discussion about the mutual intelligibilty of Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. Believe it or not, Portuguese and Italian share many words too e.g., filho/a, isso, fosse, morte, porta, corpo, viola, etc.
Secondly, the level of comprehension between speakers of Portuguese, Spanish and Italian depends on several things:
- is any one of these 3 languages your first, or mother tongue?
- were you born and raised in Portugal, Spain or Italy, and then moved to North America or elsewhere?
- are your parents Portuguese, Spanish or Italian born and raised, but you yourself were born elsewhere, and you only picked up the language informally at home through speaking with your parents?
- did you study Portuguese, Spanish or Italian formally in school?
All of these factors affect one's ability to understand any of the above 3 Romance languages, and one's perception of how close the other Romance languages really are to the one that they speak and understand.
This is a tricky thing. I was born and raised in Italy, but I have spent a significant amount of time in both Spain and Portugal. In Portugal, the Portuguese and Spaniards always seemed to converse with one another with the greatest ease. In Spain, the Spaniards and Portuguese conversed with one another with the greatest ease. But, admittedly, my Italian countrymen could not always communicate or be understood easily. Sure, there was the odd italian who knew some Spanish which made it easier, and thus had a much easier time communicating, but he was the exception rather than the rule. But in Portugal and Spain, I'm talking about just your average, rustic Spaniards and Portuguese from rural towns and villages who had no trouble talking to each other. This is a fact I observed firsthand. Another thing...in Italy, the Portuguese tourists always got by well speaking Portuguese to us Italians - at least from what I witnessed. So, this notion that Portuguese is like Greek to us Italians is way off base. I often thought, and still think, that Portuguese sounds like some of our Italian dialects with a Spanish vocabulary.
Now, if you were born outside of Portugal, Italy or Spain, naturally your perspective is not really an accurate way to assess the mutual intelligibility of Portuguese, Spanish and Italian to one another, because you are not native speakers of those languages, and whatever you know, or think you know about these languages, comes from contact with friends, co-workers, neighbours of those backgrounds, who themselves may not be native speakers of these languages either. As such, your opinions will be inaccurate and biased. The people in the best position to form opinions and observations about the mutuality of the above mentioned three languages are those who were born and raised in Italy, Portugal and Spain in the first place.
Let me just close by saying that I am an Italian, born and raised Italian, and fluent in Italian. Don't get me wrong, I love the Spanish language, most Italians do, but Spanish is not as close to Italian, as Portuguese is to Spanish, at least from my firsthand experiences.
The last thing I want to say, is that Portuguese is not an alien language to Italians (it is still mostly latin derived)...on the contrary, many, if not most Italians, understand their Portuguese cousins. I just wanted to dispel this myth once and for all. Let's not let biases and fallacious beliefs taint reason.
O Que e isto? E um livro de astronomia. Um livro sobre as estrelas e planetas. (Portugues)
I wrote:
In writting it's easy to tell it's similar to spanish. But, when a portuguese speaker of Portugal and Brazil pronounce the sentance......it's all "shh, umm, zzz" and all that. While Italian is clearer then Portuguese. One might even say, Greek is the clearest one, when it comes to pronunciation.
Spaniards (of the west-coast of Spain) MAY understand their portuguese neighbors better, because, Spain is an diverse country with many dialects within itself, and some sound similar to Portuguese, that it facilitates their comprehension of Portuguese. Which many Spaniards are expose to it at a earlier age, so they are keen to the dialects and portuguese, because, it's a close neighbor. On the other hand, you would think ITALIAN would be easy for spaniards (for some it is) But, for some Spaniards it's not....Because they live NEARER towards Portugal and their intonation is different.
The spaniards whom would understand ITALIAN almost perfectly would be the Catalonians and amongst others. Italian and Catalan are 87% in lexical, but, Catalonians lack pronunciation of their ending words, as portuguese speakers tend to do also. So Italians wouldn't understand them much, however the Catalonians would viceversa, because of their comprehension of Spanish and their own language, would facilitate their intelligibility and intuition.
For example:
Liberdade (pronounced as "liberdad or liberda") =Portuguese
Libertat (pronounced as "libert") =Catalan
Libertad (pronounced as written) =Spanish
Libertà (pronounced as written) =Italian
See? Spanish and Italian are very similar in pronunciation (phonology) and in similar in lexical. Portuguese and Spanish are similar in grammar and very similar in lexical.
Tonino <<<Portuguese and Italian are 0% intelligible according to who exactly?????? With all due respect Rolando, is anyone supposed to believe this just on your 'say so'>>>
Look dude, Its not something that I made up OK... See for your self...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_similarity
"I wrote:
In writting it's easy to tell it's similar to spanish. But, when a portuguese speaker of Portugal and Brazil pronounce the sentance......it's all "shh, umm, zzz" and all that. While Italian is clearer then Portuguese. One might even say, Greek is the clearest one, when it comes to pronunciation."
I would not include Brasil in this because as many other people know there are several variations of Br.Portuguese and the varieties of the Southern tip of Brasil (Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul) do not have many of your shhh,um, zzz sounds. Their dialects are so similar to some variations of Castellano that everybody realizes that many Argentinians and Uruguayans understand a considerable amount and can talk effortlessly with these people (without the help of Portun~ol). By the way many umm (i'm assuming you mean nasalizations) do occur in variations of Latin American spanish especially the variations spoken in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Panama. You hear definite suddle nasalization in their patterns of speech.
So what does your wikpedia link prove? Unfortunately, it does give data on Portuguese and Italian, but there is no data given for some others either. That's why social scientists rely more on empirical research based on interviewing and observing people, surveys, questionnaires, etc. It's more reliable.
I just wrote a long posting about my firsthand experiences as an Italian who spent considerable time in Portugal and Spain. The Portuguese and Spaniards communicate effortlessly.
And any Portuguese tourists I saw in Italy never had too much trouble communicating with the Italians in Portuguese. Far more than any internet sites, the firsthand experiences of people like myself is the best proof, because it is based on real life situations involving real life people. Certain information, in certain websites, you can't take as the gospel truth. As educated people, you have to discriminate the valid info. from the garbage.
Portuguese is intelligible to Italians more than people realize. Whether you accept this or not is not the point, becuase this is a fact. Additionally, other Italians in this forum have also confirmed that they understand Portuguese and vice-versa.
What I forgot to inclue in my last posting as a factor that greatly influences intelligibilty is 'EDUCATION'. In the rural towns and villages of Spain and Portugal this did not seem to be as important a factor, but in Italy, the level of education between Italians, Portuguese and Spaniards increased the level of intelligibility. How do I know? Because often I was in this conversations, and when I wasn't, I was close enough to determine if the speakers of those languages were educated...if you are educated yourself, it is something you can tell easily just by listening to the way people speak.
I wrote, "Unfortunately, it does give data on Portuguese and Italian."
What I meant to say was, "Unfortunately, it [this webpage] 'DOES NOT' give numerical data on the intelligibility level between Portuguese and Italian...."
<<Portuguese is intelligible to Italians more than people realize. Whether you accept this or not is not the point, becuase this is a fact. Additionally, other Italians in this forum have also confirmed
that they understand Portuguese and vice-versa. >>
Really this is somehow logic. If Spanish phonology is similar to the Italian one and Spanish speakers can understand almost effortless to Portuguese speakers, why Italians could not? and vice-versa.
Of course the unintelligibility between Portuguese and Italian would depend then on lexicon.
But what is the percentage of lexical similarity between Italian and Portugues ?
Mr. Who, you ask a great question. I'm going to take a stab in the dark here, and I'd be interested to hear what others have to say, but I think that mutual intelligibility between Italian/Portuguese would have to be at least higher than the 75% of Portuguese/French. So, I would say, from my experience, that the intelligibility level between Italian and Portuguese would have to be around 80%. Thoughts?
Mr. Who, I mean lexically, I'm guessing that Portuguese and Italian are at least 80%
As a Portuguese person, I would agree that lexically Portuguese and Italian are about 80% similar, certainly more than French. But Portuguese is by far is the closest to Spanish, lexically and otherwise.
JGreco wrote:
"I would not include Brasil in this because as many other people know there are several variations of Br.Portuguese and the varieties of the Southern tip of Brasil (Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul) do not have many of your shhh,um, zzz sounds. Their dialects are so similar to some variations of Castellano that everybody realizes that many Argentinians and Uruguayans understand a considerable amount and can talk effortlessly with these people (without the help of Portun~ol). By the way many umm (i'm assuming you mean nasalizations) do occur in variations of Latin American spanish especially the variations spoken in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Panama. You hear definite suddle nasalization in their patterns of speech."
I wrote:
Thanks for your input. However, cubans and puerto-ricans have nasalizations due to african ancestors. Moreover, the andalusian dialect has played an huge part in the carribean and what not. Isn't it funny? Where there has been africans in the new world, they tend to speak similar and have similar musical rhythms. A good example in Mexico would be in the states of: Veracruz, Guerrero & Yucatan where there's been a mixture of African ancestry and the inhabitants TEND to not pronounced the sibilant -s- and sound like this: "Que ereh tu?" {aspirated s}
On the contrary, in NEW-MEXICAN Spanish they don't pronounced the sibilant s. Where respectively, no african descendants have merged inn.
In New-Mexico they speak an dialect of 16th century spanish.
Examples:
Note: the H in New-mexican spanish is PRONOUNCED.
homos mushos?....tonces, quien va a cantare? Pueh yo teno un papeli que diz que puedo. Non credo que haiga cantores. (new-mexican spanish)
Somos muchos?.... entonces, quien va a cantar? Pues yo tengo un papel que dice que puedo. No creo que haya cantantes/cantores. (Standard)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexican_Spanish
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