Portuguese accent Celtic-influenced?

[Anthropologique]

No one knows with any certainty if Gaulish had nasalization. However, at one time, Gaulish was spoken in practically all of what we know today as France, including Brittany. We also have some evidence that there was at least some Gaulish influence in North-west Iberia, or ancient Gallaecia, via migration through Aquitaine. The only two major European languages with nasalization are French and Portuguese and both may have had Gaulish influences in varying degrees.

I can assure you that Breton does indeed contain nasalizations, having heard it and attempted to speak it (rather badly) many times. The question is, did the nasalization features originate from modern French or Gaulish? Breton was not solely impacted / formed by the Celtic languages spoken in southern Britain.

There is a lot to this puzzle, folks. Keep trucking...

[Wulfhere]

No one knows with any certainty if Gaulish had nasalization. However, at one time, Gaulish was spoken in practically all of what we know today as France, including Brittany. We also have some evidence that there was at least some Gaulish influence in North-west Iberia, or ancient Gallaecia, via migration through Aquitaine. The only two major European languages with nasalization are French and Portuguese and both may have had Gaulish influences in varying degrees.

I can assure you that Breton does indeed contain nasalizations, having heard it and attempted to speak it (rather badly) many times. The question is, did the nasalization features originate from modern French or Gaulish? Breton was not solely impacted / formed by the Celtic languages spoken in southern Britain.

There is a lot to this puzzle, folks. Keep trucking...

I'm afraid you're incorrect. Breton, was indeed, solely "impacted / formed" by the Celtic languages of southern Britain - because that's precisely where it came from. Anything that claims otherwise is disgraceful revisionism.

[Albion]

I'm afraid you're incorrect. Breton, was indeed, solely "impacted / formed" by the Celtic languages of southern Britain - because that's precisely where it came from. Anything that claims otherwise is disgraceful revisionism.

I would be surprised if it didn't have at least a slight Gaulish substratum though.

[Wulfhere]

I would be surprised if it didn't have at least a slight Gaulish substratum though.

Since Gaulish had died out about 500 years earlier, it seems unlikely.

[Ouistreham]

The only two major European languages with nasalization are French and Portuguese and both may have had Gaulish influences in varying degrees.

Impossible.

Why would Portuguese use nazalisation while the neighbouring Castilians, with their alleged Celtic legacy, do not?

The Southern French ignore nasal vowels. They had an indisputable Gaulic substrate though.

To explain evolution and peculiarities of languages with substrates and superstrates is just silly. A language evolves only because of its internal dynamics. Period.

Portuguese doesn't sound like Spanish because it's another language, that's all.

Similarly, once closely related Swedish and Danish, that still were one language less than ten centuries ago, evolved in opposite directions since then, and sound now incredibly different from each other. Not only respective phonetics were affected, but even word stressing became different (Danish ignores the famous secondary tonal stress of Swedish and Norwegian).

Since Gaulish had died out about 500 years earlier, it seems unlikely.

Wrong. Gaulish died out at least 100 or 200 years after Breton refugees landed in present day Brittany.

The question of why French is so nasalised is an interesting one. Norman French wasn't, but that no longer exists. The extreme, even comical nasalisation exhibited by French seems to be a development of recent centuries.

It's a relatively recent phenomenon, which started in the late Middle Age and was completed in the mid 17th century. Examination of French Renaissance poetry and rhymes give a clue of how French used to be spoken back then (with all letters being pronounced, including final -s).

The switch probably began in Normandy, at the time Norman scholar Malherbe decided to develop the standard of modern French, in the early-to-mid 17th century.

[Albion]

Since Gaulish had died out about 500 years earlier, it seems unlikely.

Oh come on! Languages don't just vanish of the face of the earth, at the very least it would have left lots of dialect words in the local version of broken Latin.

A lot of rural areas can be conservative, a lot of these words would have survived in my opinion.

[2Cool]

Impossible.

Why would Portuguese use nazalisation while the neighbouring Castilians, with their alleged Celtic legacy, do not?

The Southern French ignore nasal vowels. They had an indisputable Gaulic substrate though.

To explain evolution and peculiarities of languages with substrates and superstrates is just silly. A language evolves only because of its internal dynamics. Period.

Portuguese doesn't sound like Spanish because it's another language, that's all.

Similarly, once closely related Swedish and Danish, that still were one language less than ten centuries ago, evolved in opposite directions since then, and sound now incredibly different from each other. Not only respective phonetics were affected, but even word stressing became different (Danish ignores the famous secondary tonal stress of Swedish and Norwegian).



Wrong. Gaulish died out at least 100 or 200 years after Breton refugees landed in present day Brittany.



It's a relatively recent phenomenon, which started in the late Middle Age and was completed in the mid 17th century. Examination of French Renaissance poetry and rhymes give a clue of how French used to be spoken back then (with all letters being pronounced, including final -s).

The switch probably began in Normandy, at the time Norman scholar Malherbe decided to develop the standard of modern French, in the early-to-mid 17th century.

Are there audio clips of people reading these poems with the French accent from the Middle Ages? Like on youtube maybe?

[Damião de Góis]

We now know that the person who started this thread wasn't what he was claiming to be. He certainly didn't reply when i addressed him in portuguese either.... All this makes this thread trollish and useless. Portuguese is a latin language.

[Ouistreham]

Are there audio clips of people reading these poems with the French accent from the Middle Ages? Like on youtube maybe?

I suggest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlZfo...feature=relmfu

It's a public performance of Molière & Lully's Bourgeois Gentilhomme, entirely made according to original conditions, with baroque instruments, only candle light, and French pronounciation of Louis the 14th era (strongly rolled r's, only half-nasals, most final consonants pronounced etc.).

You can skip the overture and hear the comedians' speech from 8.30.

Welcome to the time machine!

[Comte Arnau]

If anything, all Western Romance languages but for Aragonese have been influenced by Celtic. That is, Portuguese, Galician, Asturian, Spanish, Catalan, Gascon-Occitan, the French-Oilitan languages, Arpitan and the Rhaeto-Padanian languages.