Catalan is not a dialect (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Catalan is not a dialect
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jeff_lindqvist
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Message 33 of 46

04 November 2010 at 7:42pm | IP Logged

I once sat at the same restaurant table with a Spaniard from Madrid and an Italian guy (don't know exactly where he came from) and they conversed the whole evening, using their respective languages.
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Cainntear
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Message 34 of 46

05 November 2010 at 2:30pm | IP Logged

jeff_lindqvist wrote:

I once sat at the same restaurant table with a Spaniard from Madrid and an Italian guy (don't know exactly where he came from) and they conversed the whole evening, using their respective languages.

I've seen people having bilingual conversations in completely unrelated languages. It's possible to pick up a passive understanding of a language without ever speaking it (which is common in areas with "dying" languages). I imagine it's possible to pick up a passive understanding of a related language fairly easily through, but still not "speak" it.
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Gusutafu
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Message 35 of 46

05 November 2010 at 3:25pm | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

jeff_lindqvist wrote:

I once sat at the same restaurant table with a Spaniard from Madrid and an Italian guy (don't know exactly where he came from) and they conversed the whole evening, using their respective languages.

I suppose the point here is that with these two Latin dialects is that you don't need to "pick up an understanding", you already have it.
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Lucas
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Message 36 of 46

05 November 2010 at 6:16pm | IP Logged

Interesting...every day I have bilingual conversation with my students at the restaurant
(I'm a french teacher in China).
;)

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vilas
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Message 37 of 46

05 November 2010 at 6:56pm | IP Logged

jeff_lindqvist wrote:

I once sat at the same restaurant table with a Spaniard from Madrid and an Italian guy (don't know exactly where he came from) and they conversed the whole evening, using their respective languages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgi-eUCzR-A

Have look to the above link where in a national Italian tv LA7 during the prime time Lorena Verdun make a funny lesson about sex and all the public laughs and claps to the jokes and there is almost no translation . A demonstration of the mutual understanding between the two languages on a certain level.
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jeff_lindqvist
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Message 38 of 46

06 November 2010 at 1:49am | IP Logged

Gusutafu wrote:

I suppose the point here is that with these two Latin dialects is that you don't need to "pick up an understanding", you already have it.

Exactly. I was agreeing with mrwarper (but forgot the quote).
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hrhenry
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Message 39 of 46

09 November 2010 at 12:24am | IP Logged

jeff_lindqvist wrote:

I once sat at the same restaurant table with a Spaniard from Madrid and an Italian guy (don't know exactly where he came from) and they conversed the whole evening, using their respective languages.

That's because they were unable to speak effectively in the other language.

Superficially, they're quite similar. Once you get past the superficiality of it, it's just easier to stay in your own language (using this example, of course).

R.
==
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Saim
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Message 40 of 46

03 November 2012 at 10:31pm | IP Logged

I'm sorry to revive this thread, but I just had to deal with some factual errors that
haven't been addressed.

Cainntear wrote:

But many Valencians reject the description of Valencian as "a dialect of Catalan",
because "Catalan", which was originally the name of a family of dialects, has been co-
opted by the speakers of the dialect technically known as "West Catalan". I'm pretty
certain that if the autonomous region of Catalunia had called itself West Catalunia,
then people from Valencia, the Balearics and Alguero wouldn't have a problem with their
languages being called "a dialect of Catalan".

Not true. Catalan (or Catalan-Valencian, if you want) is divided into two main
varieties, Western Catalan (spoken in the Valencian Country, Andorra and
Western Catalonia, most notably Lleida) and Eastern Catalan (spoken in
the rest of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands).

Western Catalan is then subdivided into Northwestern Catalan (that of Western
Catalonia and Andorra) and Valencian (that of the Valencian Country), while Eastern
Catalan is divided into Central Catalan (most the rest of Catalonia, which you
have erroneously referred to as "West Catalan"), Northern Catalan (a small part
of Spanish Catalonia and all of French Catalonia) and Balearic.

So no, when you say "West Catalan" you mean "Central Catalan", and even that doesn't
cover all of Catalonia.

Cainntear wrote:

The biggest grammatical difference is the past tense. Valencian and Insular Catalan
use a preterite similar to Spanish and the past historic in French and Italian, but
West Catalan and (I think) North Catalan use a periphrastic past composed from the
conjugation of "to go" followed by an infinitive -- I went is "vaig anar" (lit "Voy ir"
or "I go go").

The passat perifràstic is used in Valencian and Balearic varieties. The only
place I can say I've encountered the preterite is in written Catalan, where it's fairly
common and doesn't seem to particularly vary on dialect. The Majorcans, Ibizans and
Menorcans I've meet/heard speak have as far as I can tell made use of the , and the
Valencian music I listen to makes use of it as well.

The preterite does exist in colloquial Valencian but according to the Catalan Wikipedia
(http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valenci%C3%A0#Morfologia) but only in some dialects
(notably in Valencia the city and Alicante), and it's certainly not the only
form.

The main difference between Valencian, Central Catalan and Balearic in terms of verb
morphology is the first person present conjugation. "I love you" in Central Catalan is
"t'estimo", in Valencian "t'estime" and in Balearic "t'estim". There's even a Valencian
song referencing this particular element of the Catalan language in its chorus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7C6NsbQPe0

:P

Quote:

There's a marked difference in phonology, in that unstressed A and E in West and
(again, "I think") North Catalan are schwaified to an extent, but take a hard "a" sound
in Valencian and Insular.

No, Balearic varieties of Catalan have the strongest schwas out there. Central and
Northern have the "neutral vowel" but at least in Central it's closer to a Spanish "a"
than to an actual schwa, so much so that I've seen people mock the Barcelona dialect
barceloní by writing it phonetically asbarsaluní).

Written Catalan: Les coses són importants. La cosa és important. (The things are
important, not a particularly meaningful sentence but it demonstrates what I want to
say)

á - long a, like in Spanish
a - short Central Catalan a, between the schwa and the Spanish a
ə - schwa (like in English "opposition"
z - English z

Valencian pronunciation: Les coses son importáns. Lá cosá es importánt.
Northwestern Catalan pronunciation: Les coses son importáns. Lá cosá es importánt.
Central Catalan pronunciation: Las cozas son impurtáns. La cosa es impurtán.
Menorcan pronunciation: Səs cosəs son impurtəns. Sə cosə es impurtənt.
Ibizan pronunciation: Səs cosəs son impurtáns. Sá cosə es impurtán.
Majorcan pronunciation: Səs cosəs son importəns. Sə cosə es importənt.

In other words:
Pronouncing final "t"s - Menorcan, Majorcan, Valencian, NW C
No final "t"s - Central, Ibizan

Having reduced "e"s in unstressed positions - CC, Ibizan
Having reduced "e"s in all positions - Menorcan, Majorcan
Having no reduced "e"s - Valencian, NW C

Having reduced "o"s (u) - CC, Ibizan, Menorcan
Not having reduced "o"s - Majorcan, Valencian, NW C

Using el, la, els, les as articles - CC, NW C, Valencian
Using es, sa, ses, es/ets as articles - Menorcan, Majorcan, Ibizan

Note too that "s" is turned into "z" between vowels in the standard but I wasn't sure
how this changed by dialect so I left it out. I have a feeling that some speakers of
Valencian don't exhibit this trait, but I'm not sure.

As you can see there are more readily evident phonological differences between Balearic
varieties than between Valencian and the varieties of Western Catalonia! Just goes to
show that linguistic differences usually don't conform to political boundaries (the
dialect borders do not conform to the border between the two autonomous communities).

mrwarper wrote:

-Catalan has some orthographic features that are not present in Spanish: grave accents
(`), cedilla (Ç), and punt-volat (·), and the n tilde sound is represented by 'ny'
while it is ñ in Spanish, and, again, that is absent from Catalan. Also there are
different (if somewhat similar) grammar rules, possessives, infinitives, etc. To me,
that clearly makes them separate languages.

Orthography is just a written representation of oral language, it doesn't define a
language in itself. Because there are orthographic differences between Catalan and
Valencian (meva vs. meua), and between Commonwealth and American English (civilization
vs. civilisation, color vs. colour), but does that make them "separate languages"? Are
Chinese and Japanese related since they use a similar writing system? Of course not,
Chinese is related to Tibetan and not Japanese despite the fact that it shares a
writing system with the latter and not the former. So even though I agree with the
conclusion, and the stuff about grammar rules and so on, I'd be wary of using these
kinds of arguments.

Edited by Saim on 03 November 2012 at 10:45pm

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