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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Kveldulv Senior Member Italy Joined 6953 days ago 222 posts - 244 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Italian* | Message 25 of 32 01 August 2006 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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EDIT: no more important. Edited by Kveldulv on 04 August 2006 at 3:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alfonso Octoglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6861 days ago 511 posts - 536 votes Speaks: Biblical Hebrew, Spanish*, French, English, Tzotzil, Italian, Portuguese, Ancient Greek Studies: Nahuatl, Tzeltal, German | Message 26 of 32 01 August 2006 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Ups! You're right, Kveldulv. Thanks for telling me. I already edited my post. I used another example that fits in: grammar. Edited by Alfonso on 01 August 2006 at 11:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| easyboy82 Pentaglot Groupie Italy Joined 6830 days ago 72 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Greek | Message 27 of 32 02 August 2006 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I share much of your personal view. Grammatically,historically and culturally French and Italian are very closely related.In terms of mutual intelligibility ,however, Spanish is much more intelligible by Italians who generally consider it an easier language to learn to speak then French. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Thomaskim Groupie Joined 7269 days ago 84 posts - 85 votes | Message 28 of 32 04 August 2006 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I am astounded to see how much confusion seems to reign supreme in the 'department' of Romance languages.
So many sweeping generalizations... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 29 of 32 05 August 2006 at 7:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Sinfonia briefly brought up the topic of Occitan (the language that is spoken - or not - in Southern France), and that made me wonder once again about the relationships between lingustics, history and geography.
If you take the 'classical' subdivision of the Romance languages, it is based on a sequence of sound shifts that took place at least 1500 years ago. According to this methodology Italian and Romanian belong together against all the rest. But then a lot of Slavonic tribes invaded Balkan and cut Romanian off from the rest of the Romance world (eradicating Dalmatian, that was the only connecting link). Everything that has happened since then has obscured the old relationship to the extent that it has absolutely no relevance today for those who want to learn these languages. In Western Europa there was off course no Slavonic invasion, but historical developments nevertheless did play a role in shaping the linguistic landscape. With one of these risky sweeping generalization you would normally say that there is an Iberian group of languages (Portuguese, Castilian "Spanish" and Catalan), then there is a French and finally an Italian group (Italian plus Sardinian and Romansch, maybe a couple more). According to the historical linguists there are really three languages in the French group: (northern) French, Francoprovençal and Occitan. I have not seen any proof that Francoprovençal still is a living language, so let's forget about that for now. But what about Occitan? If you had asked that question around 1200 there would have been a flourishing Occitan language with Provençal as on of its main dialects. There was a rich cultural life with troubadours running around from court to court, - some the rulers were even troubadors themselves. In short nobody would have doubted then that Occitan was language in itself. But then a series of cunning and ruthless French kings crushed the Occitan culture in a series of religious wars, and the world has never been the same since. French has always been very centralized even in linguistical matters, and the Occitan language has had to go underground. A group of poets around Mistral did try to revive it in the 1800s, but without much success. So basically now you hear French more or less influenced by Occitan, and you have to look hard for speakers of something that might be classified as 'real' surviving Occitan. You could say that the Occitan has been forced into the role as a false dialect of French, even though it was from the outset a distinct language. And of course this has had its repercussions on the continent. On the Iberian pensinsula it meant that Catalan lost its fragile connection to the North East and became a purely Iberian language, neighbor to an evermore dominating Castilian. In Northern Italy it seems that the whole string of dialects from Piemontese to Veneto plus Romansch at the outset belonged to the Western group rather than to the Eastern group of Romance languages, that is: more to Occitan (or Francoprovençal) than to the Italian dialects. This was brought up in a thread about Italian dialects, and once again it was the indefatigable Sinfonia who reminded me of a troublesome fact that I had conveniently forgotten. However, when the Occitan culture was crushed that connection became less important, and as far as I can see at least Venetian (Veneto) has drifted along with Italian ever since. As early as in the 1500s it is difficult to see the Occitan connection, and in the later texts that I have checked the Italian influence seems even more dominant. So basically: during the French crusades against Occitan speaking areas in the 1300s it was not just one language and culture that was smashed, but also one possible scenario with cultural connections stretching all the way from Catalunya (and Valencia) through Southern Franch to Istria. Instead we got the present sitation with Portuguese-Castilian-Catalan versus French versus Italian, and with Romanian isolated somewhere out of sight. Edited by Iversen on 13 August 2006 at 11:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sinfonia Senior Member Wales Joined 6744 days ago 255 posts - 261 votes Speaks: English* | Message 30 of 32 05 August 2006 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I hope there's no connection :-(
I think it all depends on where you get your information from. French-backed sources tend to downplay Occitan's very existence. But my impression is that there's a reasonably sustainable and growing culture, similar to that of Welsh in Wales -- periodicals, pop music, language classes and resources etc widely available. But the linguistically fascist French government would certainly crush it all if they could! But interesting insights -- thanks :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 32 05 August 2006 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Oh no, you just just gave me a marvelous idea for some sweeping generalizations. And thanks for that. There is one very important distinction between the situation of Occitan and Welsh: Welsh is so different from English that nobody in their sane mind could mistake Welsh for a dialect of English. But Occitan is just a bit too close to French, - the same person may be talking pure school-French to the authorities, Occitan to his mom and French Occitan patois to everybody else. This situation makes it easy to overlook any 'true' Occitan utterances and it facilitates a slide towards more and more standardized French, due not least to the leveling influence of television from Paris. Whether the totally private initiatives Sinfonia mentions can save Occitan in this situation remains to be seen, - I'm not too optimistic. Edited by Iversen on 05 August 2006 at 4:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sinfonia Senior Member Wales Joined 6744 days ago 255 posts - 261 votes Speaks: English* | Message 32 of 32 05 August 2006 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm not sure I am either...But I wrote a dissertation on minority Romance languages in France in 1992, and compared to then, Occitan's situation appears to have strengthened -- at least for the Gascon variety. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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