View Poll Results: Which is closest?

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  • French

    18 56.25%
  • Portuguese

    5 15.63%
  • Romanian

    9 28.13%
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Thread: Which non-Spanish Romance language is closer to Italian overall -- Portuguese, Romanian or French?

  1. #131
    Veteran Member Seya's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sikeliot View Post
    Sicilian dialects do sound a lot like Romanian (people said so in the comments here) and you can hear Greek influence in the sound as well. I also hear some Spanish too.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMyZtuAXBtU&t=323s
    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.

  2. #132
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sikeliot View Post
    Going by lexical similarity Spanish is not even the closest to Italian. The way it is closer is spelling and pronunciation. But Portuguese has features that are more differentiated (articles like el/la, il/la no longer immediately recognizable, the c with the squiggly line below it, etc).
    I don't know, but Portuguese and Spanish are quite close if you know the expectable differences:

    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:

    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".
    Now we just change the orthography to look more like Portuguese, using the naïve rules I stated before:

    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".
    There are more words who are very easy to guess, so I'll change them too:

    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".
    You can see in brown the only words that don't exist in Portuguese, and they are not that hard to guess:
    pero/mas, posee/possui, hombre/homem, dispondría/disporia, medios/meios, es/é, sometida/submetida

    Now, a more natural translation:

    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".
    I doubt there is any foreign language as close to Spanish than Portuguese.

  3. #133
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    Quote Originally Posted by kkk77 View Post
    I doubt there is any foreign language as close to Spanish than Portuguese.
    When written I understand Portuguese perfectly, perhaps 99% of the content.
    Does not happen the same with Italian. With luck I understand 50%.

  4. #134
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dick View Post
    That she is.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cristiano viejo View Post
    When written I understand Portuguese perfectly, perhaps 99% of the content.
    Does not happen the same with Italian. With luck I understand 50%.
    That's what luck is. 50/50 chance

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    I cannot understand French when written very easily.

  6. #136
    In Corpore Sardo Mens-Sarda's Avatar
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    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.
    Non Auro, Sed Ferro, Recuperanda Est Patria (Not by Gold, But by Iron, Is the Nation to be Recovered) - Marcus Furius Camillus (Roman General)

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    French is the most similar, in my opinion.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AphroditeWorshiper View Post
    Catalan is the most similar romance language to Italian

    at least, was a discussion that I read in one Catalan forum, maybe Occitan/Catalan, after that I think French
    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.

    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.


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    Quote Originally Posted by Seya View Post
    in between French and Romanian. it sounds closer to romanian tho


    not even close




    ps: i speak fluently all latin languages included napoletano. i do understand very well all the other dialects.
    Amazing. I accept to marry you.

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    In Corpore Sardo Mens-Sarda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ethel View Post
    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.

    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.

    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.

    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")
    Last edited by Mens-Sarda; 05-13-2019 at 08:15 AM.
    Non Auro, Sed Ferro, Recuperanda Est Patria (Not by Gold, But by Iron, Is the Nation to be Recovered) - Marcus Furius Camillus (Roman General)

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