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i didn't listen the whole thing but they speak italian with a southern accent. that's not sicilian. from 3:00-3:15 it is but most of them speak italian..i do hear some word here and there in sicilian dialect tho. anyway..the music of the language...the sound of it is indeed very romanian and no other language comes cose to it in terms of sound.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sikeliot
I don't know, but Portuguese and Spanish are quite close if you know the expectable differences:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sikeliot
The Ç, usually corresponds to a CI or Z in Spanish: serviço/servicio, abraço/abrazo
Initial H or GE sometimes corresponds to a H, HE in Spanish: farinha/harina, gelado/helado
Final ON/AN usually corresponds to ÃO in Portuguese: camión/camião, capitan/capitão
Similar for plurals ONES/ANES becoming ÕES/ÃES: camiones/camiões, capitanes/capitães
Final M in Portuguese is an N in Spanish: un/um, en/em, con/com
There are a lot of consonants lost in Portuguese to become a diphthong. Eg:
- plural of words ending in L: animales/animais, canibales/canibais, corporales/corporais, cereales/cereais
Ending DADE is TAD/DAD in Spanish: facultad/faculdade, dificultad/dificuldade, libertad/liberdade
Ending VEL is BLE in Spanish: possivel/possible, terrivel/terrible, visivel/visible
Ending IL sometimes is ILE in Spanish: missil/misile, perfil/perfile
Ending AGE or AGEN is AGEM in Portuguese: imagen/imagem, mirage/miragem
There are however some missing letters in Portuguese that make it harder for non Portuguese to make the connection. Eg:
solo/só, eres/és, tener/têr, naturaleza/natureza, persona/pessoa
And some monothongization in Spanish: toro/touro, madera/madeira
And some diphthongization in SPanish: miedo/medo, piedra/pedra, escuela/escola
The articles are not that different too if you know the portuguese drops the initial L:
la/a, las/as, los/os, el/o
What makes it harder is that Portuguese contracts them:
de + article: de las, de la, de los, del ➡ das, da, dos, do
en + article: en las, en la, en los, en el ➡ nas, na, nos, no
por + article: por las, por la, por los, por el ➡ pelas, pela, pelos, pelo
a + article: a las, a la, a los, al ➡ às, à, aos, ao
Other than that, there are some orthographic simplifications in Spanish that doesn't exist in Portuguese:
single s: pasado/passado, oso/osso
z instead of ci/ce: veces/vezes, aceite/azeite, hacer/fazer
And simplifications in Portuguese:
no silent H inside words: prohibido/proibido, vehiculo/veiculo
I (sometimes J or nothing) instead of Y: apoya/apoia, ayuda/ajuda, excluyen/excluem
And different representations:
LL/LH, Ñ/NH (sometimes LL/LH is just L and Ñ/NH is just N in one or another): caballo/cavalo, año/ano, pilha/pila, apellido/apelido, etc
There are also other minor differences that don't really make it much different: perfecto/perfeito, feria/feira, deber/dever, cobrir/cubrir, etc
When you sum all this, Portuguese and Spanish aren't all that different:
Now we just change the orthography to look more like Portuguese, using the naïve rules I stated before:Quote:
Pero, a pesar de esta variedad de posibilidades que la voz posee, sería un muy pobre instrumento de comunicación si no contara más que con ella. La capacidad de expresión del hombre no dispondría de más medios que la de los animales. La voz, sola, es para el hombre escasamente una materia informe, que para convertirse en un instrumento perfecto de comunicación debe ser sometida a un cierto tratamiento. Esa manipulación que recibe la voz son las "articulaciones".
There are more words who are very easy to guess, so I'll change them too:Quote:
Pero, apesar desta variedade de possibilidades que a voz posee, seria um mui pobre instrumento de comunicação si no contara más que com ela. A capacidade de expressão do hombre no dispondría de más medios que a dos animais. A voz, só, es para o hombre escassamente una materia informe, que para convertir-se num instrumento perfecto de comunicação debe ser sometida a um certo tratamento. Essa manipulação que recibe a voz são as "articulações".
You can see in brown the only words that don't exist in Portuguese, and they are not that hard to guess:Quote:
Pero, apesar desta variedade de possibilidades que a voz posee, seria um muito pobre instrumento de comunicação se não contara mais que com ela. A capacidade de expressão do hombre não dispondría de más medios que a dos animais. A voz, só, es para o hombre escassamente uma materia informe, que para converter-se num instrumento perfeito de comunicação deve ser sometida a um certo tratamento. Essa manipulação que recebe a voz são as "articulações".
pero/mas, posee/possui, hombre/homem, dispondría/disporia, medios/meios, es/é, sometida/submetida
Now, a more natural translation:
I doubt there is any foreign language as close to Spanish than Portuguese.Quote:
Mas, apesar da variedade de possibilidades que a voz possui, seria um instrumento de comunicação muito pobre se não se contasse com mais do que ela. A capacidade de expressão do homem não disporia de mais meios que a dos animais. A voz, sozinha, é para o homem apenas uma matéria informe, que para se converter num instrumento perfeito de comunicação deve ser submetida a um certo tratamento. Essa manipulação que a voz recebe são as "articulações".
When written I understand Portuguese perfectly, perhaps 99% of the content.Quote:
Originally Posted by kkk77
Does not happen the same with Italian. With luck I understand 50%.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick
That's what luck is. 50/50 chanceQuote:
Originally Posted by Cristiano viejo
I cannot understand French when written very easily.
Well, I think Romanian can be very similar to Italian, the way plurals are formed and many other things give to Romanian a more Italian sound. Both languages belong to the same Italic-Eastern Romance group, while French and Portuguese to the Western group.Curiously because of a case of convergent evolution in Sardinian language there are many words identical or similar to Romanian, words that are present only in these two languages.
French is the most similar, in my opinion.
Both Catalan and French are closer to Italian before any Iberian language or Romanian. I have no clue why the thread title is assuming that spanish is the closest one.Quote:
Originally Posted by AphroditeWorshiper
Besides French being the most similar to Italian in grammar and vocabulary (lexical similarity), I also agree that Catalan is the "closest" one, because not only it's the second most similar, it also has much more similarities with Italian regarding speech and pronunciation.
I remember seeing a Poll where Catalans had to vote which was the most similar language to theirs among French, Spanish and Italian, and the most voted was Italian.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...036/image0.png
Amazing. I accept to marry you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seya
Making a comparison with all these Romance languages we can see that Sardinian as usually lies in the middle, not Western neither Eastern, but Insular, the third branch of the Romance family.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ethel
Window -> Balcone or Fenestra (in the north) - Ventana (in the south). We can find a similarity with Portuguese "Janela" in the Sardinian "Janna" (door); Janela is the diminutive of the Latin "Janua" (door).
To eat -> Mandicare, Mandigare (in the north) - Pappai, Pappari (in the south) - from Latin "Pappare" (to eat).
Morning -> Manzanu (in the north) - Mengianu (in the south) - from Vulgar Latin "Tempus Maneanus" (morning time).
To speak -> Faeddare, Faveddare, Fabeddare (in the north) - Fueddai, Fueddari (in the south) - both derived like Spanish from Latin "Fabulare" or more likely from Vulgar Latin "Fabellare"
Table -> Taula or Mesa or also Banca (from Germanic "Bank, Bench")