Re: Related languages (Re: A China-Sumer connection)

From: António Marques (m.ap_at_sapo.pt)
Date: 03/29/05 

Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:49:00 +0100

Comm wrote:

>>> Portueguese sounds like SPANISH to me - I said that 100 times
>>> already.
>>
>> It just means you must be 100 times deaf. Portuguese *looks* like
>> spanish; it *sounds* quite different. Brazilian has less vowel
>> reduction, so yes, it may sound less unlike spanish.
>
> Actually, I have VERY good ears. Portuguese and Brazilian people
> right here speak with no problem with Mexicans. They are NOT
> eduated people. They are handimen. If I ask them where they are
> from, what they speak, they tell me. It's a LITTLE different - but
> sounds enough the same to me. You are arguing with me over
> something SUBjective.

Ok, a reasoned reply...

1. Just because two languages sound quite different, it needn't
compromise mutual intelligibility between native speakers of the two.

2. I know little mexican, but I recall hearing that it was more
consonantal in nature than the other spanishes - which would interface
with portuguese.

3. Everything is subjective. As I said - both and russian sound like
japanese to a hedgehog. Oh, russian does sometimes sound a bit like
portuguese. Portuguse, brazilian and galician sound different from one
another.

>>> And NO, many Italian speaking people can NOT understand
>>> Spanish. In fact, the ONLY Italian people I know that
>>> understand Spanish also speak it because they learned it.
>>
>> Standard italian may be close enough to spanish to be mutually
>> intelligible, given some vocabulary shopping. Yet your other
>> friends are reputed to understand portuguese, spanish, italian
>> and french without having learned those!
>
> I didn't say that. You did. Learn to read more carefully.

You've repeated that accusation in the past, only to be found out that
everyone had it the same as I did. Have you or have you not claimed to
have a 'hispanic' friend who understands all kinds of 'hispanic' and
italian, and an italian friend who understands spanish and french
without having studied them? 

-- 
am
laurus : rhodophyta : brezoneg : smalltalk : stargate

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