Lexical similarities between French-Spanish-Italian

>>I disagree with you that standard Italian is based also on Sicilian. Sicilian has always been thought of as different and corrupt form of Italian - it is even considered a separate language by many. Florentine accent is what standard Italian is based on though. The Rome accent is a mish-mash, not clear at all. I have heard it and it is even harder to understand.<<

Excerpt from Wikipedia:

"Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina."

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


>>Yes, everyone will have an opinion. Just so you know, I'm a native 'Madrileno' and I earned a masters degree in linguistics there. So I would like to think that my opinion has more than a moderate degree of legitimacy.<<

Exactly. If your area of expertise lies within linguistics, you'll know that Spanish possesses a variety of variants, some of which are closer "more or less" to Portuguese and others to Italian whether be it pronunciation clearity, grammar or vocabulary.

E.g.
Argentinean, Uruguayan, Chilean, Ecuador and Mexican etc. = Italian
Parts of Spain, Carribean countries and Venezuela etc. = Portuguese

>>Yes, European Portuguese is a little trickier, but not much. The main reason why Portuguese and Castillians don't bother learnining each others language, is because without even studying it, we are already capable of communicating almost effortlessly.<<

As I have mentioned before Portugal and Spain are geographically affiliated. Additionally various dialects or languages (i.e. Galician, Catalan, Aranese, Asturian, Andalusian etc.) within Spain - some more or less similar to Portuguese - is what probably makes Spaniards coherent towards Portuguese; as well as with South-Americans closely align with Brazil.

>>This is fact. Italian would be the next closest and then French, in terms of major Romance lanuguages.<<

I agree. Portuguese is the closest major Romance language to Spanish's grammar, vocabulary and reasonable in pronunciation. Italian is the closest major Romance language to Spanish's phonology, reasonable in vocabulary and grammar.

Let's make some things clear.

German language had NOT any influence in development of the italian language. Just latin and greek, but no german roots.

Sicilian is a dialect and is very different from standard italian.

Standard italian is based ONLY on Florence's dialect, but they are NOT the same thing.

People in Florence usually speak some words in dialect and they have a very strong accent that is NOT the standard accent.
Sometimes florentine accent is hard to understand also for italians.

People in Rome usually speak some words and some expression in dialect that are similar to spanish. Roman accent is easy but is NOT the standard accent.

In Bologna they speak a very good italian, but with a strong accent.

If you want to hear a standard italian spoken without dialectal words and with an almost standard accent, you should go in North-West (Milan, Turin...).

By the way, there's not an exact place for the right standard italian, because any town has its own dialect and its own accent.
Standard italian is spoken by any italian with a good culture, it doesn't matter where he come from.

For example, you can find the perfect standard italian watching NOT-italian movies (because they're translated).

@ Castilianu:

Yes, Dante Alighieri JUST got some (sweet) words from Sicilian.
Sicilian of his time was very different, because yet without spanish influence (that was very strong).

French has completely non-Latin phonetics. Gaulish had many words that seemed sort of Latin-like, and their form was more Latin-like than any Frendh word's form. French came from Frankish mixing with Gaulish, and where words come from either Gaulish or Latin has not yet been satisfactorilly demonstrated.

The vowels are all entirely un-Latin in French. English has far closer vowels to Latin than French does. Italian itself is not Latin, but partly retains Latin. It is very different in word form from Latin, French often being closer in spelling, though the manner in which those closer French spellings are affected in speech is more distant from Latin phonetics than much altered Italian words are affected in speech.

Spanish seems the closest to Latin in many ways, as far as word form frequency goes. Latin died out amidst a completely different language, however closely related, that became Italian. Latin was one of many Italic languages, one of which might have outlasted it in the form of Italian, and may be older than Latin in its earlier forms for all we know.

There are in deed syntactic features in Italian that are in Spanish, but not in French.

[name changed by moderator; originally posted as 'Travis']

C'est plutôt les langues occitanes qui devraient être à la "croisée" des chemins phonologiques.

pseudo-Travis : « English has far closer vowels to Latin than French does. »

C'est la meilleure de l'année ! Pratiquement aucune voyelle anglaise n'est cardinale...





pseudo-Travis : « The vowels are all entirely un-Latin in French. »

Tout à fait. La preuve → <autosatisfait> <blaireau> <coucou> <débilité> <étourdi> <falot> <gaga> <hébété> <ignorer> <jobard> <képi> <lourdaud> <malappris> <nigaud> <otarie> <perroquet> <quolibet> <riquiqui> <sot> <tocard> <vagir> <wisigoth> <xiphoïde> <y> <zozo>.
Tu m'excuseras : j'ai rien trouvé qui commence par <u>...

italian, spanish romanian are all different in some aspects, thus reflecting their common ansestor, latin: such as: the italian language's vocabulary is close to latin while spanish has its verb system more close to latin than its counterparts, and rumanian because of its declesions it's also very close to latin

however many words are similar or not in Italian and Spanish and French,

I still found it easier to understand Italian than French. English is my

first language Spanish 2nd then some Italian and French. All three are

just Variations of Latin anyway duh!

Jules Verne about spanish language:
“What a language!” he said. “How full and sonorous it is! It is like the metal church bells are made of—composed of seventy-eight parts of copper and twenty-two of tin.”

Spanish is very similar to Portuguese, then to Italian and last to French. I speak five languages perfectly well and I guarantee you that someone who speaks only Spanish and has never studied any other language will be able to understand Portuguese and Italian more easily than French.

El español es muy similar al portugués, después al italiano y por último al francés. Yo hablo perfectamente bien cinco idiomas y les aseguro que alguien que hable solamente español y no haya estudiado ninguna otra lengua, puede ser capaz de entender portugués e italiano más fácilmente que el francés.

O espanhol e muito similar ao português, depois ao italiano e por último ao francês. Eu falo cinco línguas perfeitamente bem e lhes garanto que uma pessoa que só fala espanhol sem que ter aprendido nenhumas outras línguas, poderá ser capaz de compreender mais fácilmente o português e o italiano que o francês.

Lo spagnolo è molto simile al portoghese, poi al’italiano e per ultimo al francese. Parlo cinque lingue perfettamente bene ed io l’assicuro che chiunque parle soltanto lo spagnolo e che non abbia mai imparato nessuna altre lingue, può essere capace di capire il portoghese e l’italiano più facilmente dal francese.

L’espagnol est très similaire au português, puis au italien et finalement au français. Je parle cinq langages parfaitement bien et je vous assure que quelqu’un qui parle espagnol seulement et n’a jamais étudié aucune autre langue, pourra comprendre le português et l’italien plus facilement que le français.

<<O espanhol e muito similar ao português, depois ao italiano e por último ao francês. Eu falo cinco línguas perfeitamente bem e lhes garanto que uma pessoa que só fala espanhol sem que ter aprendido nenhumas outras línguas, poderá ser capaz de compreender mais fácilmente o português e o italiano que o francês. >>

O Espanhol é muito semelhante ao Português...
Eu falo 5 línguas perfeitamente (perfeitamente bem é redundante em Português) e garanto-lhes que uma pessoa que só fale Espanhol, sem ter aprendido nenhuma das outras línguas, (é capaz de compreender) compreende mais facilmente o Português e o Italiano do que o Francês.

Im Portuguese, for me French is easier than Italian.

"Lo spagnolo è molto simile al portoghese, poi al’italiano e per ultimo al francese. Parlo cinque lingue perfettamente bene ed io l’assicuro che chiunque parle soltanto lo spagnolo e che non abbia mai imparato nessuna altre lingue, può essere capace di capire il portoghese e l’italiano più facilmente dal francese."

Lo spagnolo è molto simile al portoghese, poi ALL’italiano e per ultimo al francese. Parlo cinque lingue perfettamente E ASSICURO che chiunque parlI soltanto lo spagnolo e non abbia mai imparato nessuna altrA linguA, può capire il portoghese e l’italiano più facilmente DEL francese.

Do you speak 5 langauges perfectly?? It doesn't seem....
Think twice instead of shooting big balls.
Besides I do not agree in what you said

I agree . The phraseology of the above posted sentences by dennys is not quite correct. If anyone wants to do comparisons, they should at least write the sentences of different languages correctly.

Many Italian artists choose to sing in Spanish too : Nek, Eros Ramazzotti, Laura Pausini and so on. None of them sing in French because it is easier for them to sing in Spanish and they also earn more money.

No, the sole reason they sing in Spanish is because they are famous in South America which is a big affair and a big record market due to thehigh number of people. The "easiness" of Spanish has nothing to do with this.