Favourite official languages of Europe

[Mens-Sarda]

Success breeds jealousy.

I think Italian is a ridiculous, almost comical language and Sicilian sounds like a retarded goat trying to utter its first words. You disagree ? Well, tant pis. I couldn't give a shit.

well, according to studies, French is the most distant language, compared to the original Latin model, so, who is the most barbarian speaker?




Grado di evoluzione secondo gli studi effettuati dal linguista di origini italiane Mario Pei rispetto al latino:

• Lingua sarda: 8%
• Lingua italiana: 12%
• Lingua spagnola: 20%
• Lingua romena: 23,5%
• Lingua catalana 24%
• Lingua occitana (provenzale): 25%
• Lingua portoghese: 31%
• Lingua francese: 44%

[Ouistreham]

Success breeds jealousy.

I think Italian is a ridiculous, almost comical language and Sicilian sounds like a retarded goat trying to utter its first words. You disagree ? Well, tant pis. I couldn't give a shit.

It's by and large true.
But Spanish is even worse due to the constant lisping.
When I'm in Italy or Spain I like to speak the local languages, as far as I can, but I realize sometimes that if some Frenchman hears me he would laugh at the overly rhetorical and theatrical grandiloquence I'm trying to imitate.
These are great languages for singing loud though.

The Italians are terribly insecure (there is a peculiar inferiority complex about being Italian). They are actually deeply ashamed of their language.
They have imported the concept of gouvernance [fr.], or governance [Eng.], but they don't dare to call it governanza, it would sound too unserious, they prefer to say governance!

And do you know how they call their Ministry of Social Affairs? Affari soziali? No, everybody says "Ministero del Welfare", it sounds more efficient that way!

Pathetic.

Just for your information: refrain from using such ridiculous concepts like Gallo or Arpitan, anyone who does is exposed as a blatant retard.

[Vasconcelos]

Do you realize Portuguese and Galician are almost the same, and that Asturian and Mirandese are very similar aswell?

[Rudel]

Don't call it Francian if you don't like the name. But it's pretty obvious that the Joret line works as a perfect isogloss line in linguistics by any standards. To the point that one can often guess in English whether a loanword was Norman or "Francian" thanks to that.

The Jorret line is particularly relevant to English philology, but isn't as important in the grand scheme of French linguistics. There isn't one isoglotic set that puts Île-de-France as the unconditional centre of gravity of the tongue (it would be further South-West, actually). While the influence of Paris has been predominant in recent times, in particular after the XVIIth century, it's not always been the dominant force behind it since the inception of French as a well defined language.
More on our isoglosses : http://projetbabel.org/vosgien/langues_oil.htm

I'm not that sure that all French speakers understood something like Éj voéyoais ech cat quèrre del cayelle, even if close.

As far as we know common scripta was there pretty early on. As for the inter-comprehension between the lower people, it's fairly irrelevant. The lower registers are of almost no importance where the normalisation of a language via a literate historical process is concerned. Putting it shortly : that the peasants from different provinces could understand each other is irrelevant because they never spoke to each other.

Laws never reveal real linguistics, but are what makes thing official or not.

What I'm saying is that foreign laws ruling on languages in France are of no value whatsoever, and I consider European laws to be as foreign as Turkish ones.

Savoyan would be a nice option, but I'm not sure whether Valdostans would like it. Francoprovençal might have been the traditional one in linguistics, but it is a horrible misleading name.

It's misleading for the larger public, but it is a fairly established signifier in linguistic circles. I myself prefer talking about Alpine Gallo-Romance. "Arpitan" is an etymological monstrosity, beyond its political load.

well, according to studies, French is the most distant language, compared to the original Latin model, so, who is the most barbarian speaker?

Languages aren't what they come from but what you make of them.

[RighNick]

Do you realize Portuguese and Galician are almost the same, and that Asturian and Mirandese are very similar aswell?

Yes, I know that Galician and Portuguese are essentially the same. I said I "love" Galician because I have Galician ancestry so the language appeals to me because of that. I think Mirandese is interesting because I watched a program on TV about it and I'm not that familiar with Asturian so I left it blank.

[Peyrol]

It's by and large true.
But Spanish is even worse due to the constant lisping.
When I'm in Italy or Spain I like to speak the local languages, as far as I can, but I realize sometimes that if some Frenchman hears me he would laugh at the overly rhetorical and theatrical grandiloquence I'm trying to imitate.
These are great languages for singing loud though.

The Italians are terribly insecure (there is a peculiar inferiority complex about being Italian). They are actually deeply ashamed of their language.
They have imported the concept of gouvernance [fr.], or governance [Eng.], but they don't dare to call it governanza, it would sound too unserious, they prefer to say governance!

And do you know how they call their Ministry of Social Affairs? Affari soziali? No, everybody says "Ministero del Welfare", it sounds more efficient that way!

Pathetic.


Just for your information: refrain from using such ridiculous concepts like Gallo or Arpitan, anyone who does is exposed as a blatant retard.

The concept of standard italian/polite italian language is still a far concept in some zones (Sardinian, inner Sicily, Neapolitan hinterland, Lombard mountains, etc).

[alfieb]

The concept of standard italian/polite italian language is still a far concept in some zones (Sardinian, inner Sicily, Neapolitan hinterland, Lombard mountains, etc).

Yep. My mom is from inner Sicily, and they write in Italian but you rarely hear people speak it.

[Comte Arnau]

Just for your information: refrain from using such ridiculous concepts like Gallo or Arpitan, anyone who does is exposed as a blatant retard.

Personally I also find those names kind of retard, as I said. But that's the way they figure in documents, not my choice.

The Jorret line is particularly relevant to English philology, but isn't as important in the grand scheme of French linguistics. There isn't one isoglotic set that puts Île-de-France as the unconditional centre of gravity of the tongue (it would be further South-West, actually). While the influence of Paris has been predominant in recent times, in particular after the XVIIth century, it's not always been the dominant force behind it since the inception of French as a well defined language.
More on our isoglosses : http://projetbabel.org/vosgien/langues_oil.htm

Very interesting set. You can see the Joret line there, btw, in the CHAT or CHEVAL examples. They should have included the GAMBE/JAMBE too.

By more South-West, where do you mean exactly? Chartres? Le Mans?

As far as we know common scripta was there pretty early on. As for the inter-comprehension between the lower people, it's fairly irrelevant. The lower registers are of almost no importance where the normalisation of a language via a literate historical process is concerned. Putting it shortly : that the peasants from different provinces could understand each other is irrelevant because they never spoke to each other.

And that's why those common scripta are usually of lesser linguistic value. Some were really really far from the way local people spoke.

What I'm saying is that foreign laws ruling on languages in France are of no value whatsoever, and I consider European laws to be as foreign as Turkish ones.

From what I've read, there is certainly some explicit recognition of the breton and the langue gallèse in documents concerning the Conseil régional de la Bretagne. Unless you also consider Brittany not part of France either...

[Comte Arnau]

I think you could add the Hungarian minority in Transylvania.
There is also a German minority in Belgium (Eupen-Malmedy) and in Denmark (there is a Danish minority in North-Germany as well).
But it would probably get quite confusing if you added every minority-group

If you notice, Belgium as a country has 'disappeared'. The German-speaking part is included in the German-speaking territory.

It didn't make much sense to do the same with Danish and German because apparently you can find a Danish minority in northern Germany and a German minory in southern Jutland. You're right, though, that a white line going from Hungary to Transylvania could have been added. But even so, all those languages already figure on the map, I was more interested in making all recognized languages appear at least somewhere on it. That's why, for instance, in Vojvodina, instead of adding Hungarian too, or Croatian, or Slovak, I prefer to include Rusyn, as it's the only place in Europe where it seems to have some official recognition.

Thanks for the tips.

[Rudel]

By more South-West, where do you mean exactly? Chartres? Le Mans?

Touraine, East of Anjou, North of Berry.

And that's why those common scripta are usually of lesser linguistic value. Some were really really far from the way local people spoke.

And that's why what local people spoke is irrelevant. Our languages are literary, not popular.

From what I've read, there is certainly some explicit recognition of the breton and the langue gallèse in documents concerning the Conseil régional de la Bretagne. Unless you also consider Brittany not part of France either...

Conseils régionaux are enemies from the interior. Furthermore, they have no legislative power. This isn't Spain, our provincial administrations aren't feudal states (yet).

You might want to look into the Atlas linguistique de la France, its got the best maps.











And some other stuff :

1 - Border of Gallo-Roman (Note that Catalan is more oftenly considered as Gallo-Roman, even if not represented here)
2 - Border between the three gallo-roman avatars (without Catalan)
3 - Approximate border between northern and southern Gallo-Roman at the end of Early Middle Ages
3bis - The same, for the XIII century
4 - Border between the southern and northern occitan dialects.
5 - Approximative dialectal limits
6 - Important intradialectal limits
7 - Transitional regions
8 - Regions of linguistic change. Arrows indicate the direction of the change.
9 - Francisation of Franco-Provencal.
10 - Romance toponymy in germanic regions up to the VIII - IX centuries.
11 - Bilinguism in Belgium during the High Middle Ages.