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Most similar language to Italian | ||
Tags: Linguistic relationships | Italian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| SPQR Etruria Diglot Newbie Italy Joined 5306 days ago 14 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Italian*, English | Message 1 of 25 15 May 2010 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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What do you think is the most similar language to Italian?
This is a topic that has always charmed me, I've managed to find on the net some information, more or less reliable -it depends on your personal opinion too- about the lexical similarities between Italian and the other principal Romance Languages: 89% with French 87% with Catalan 85% with Sardinean 82% with Spanish 78% with Raeto Romance Languages (Ladin, Romansch) 77% with Romanian Then i've found that the most spread opinion about the grammar structure similarity between Italian and another National romance languages is with French. My personal opinion about the phonetic similarity instead is that Italian on this topic is more similar with Spanish, my opinion is based solely on the mutual-intellegibility that seems to exist between two speakers of these two languages who have never studied the other language, for example: if two speakers of these languages spell clearly and slowly their respectively languages, the two of them can often understend each other (or more often the general meaning of the other speech). What do you think? Here's a map about the relationships and similarities between the Romance languages: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Romance-l g-classification-en.png (removed the direct link to the picture as it messed up the forum layout due to the massive size. -mrhenrik) Edited by mrhenrik on 15 May 2010 at 5:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6121 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes  22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 2 of 25 15 May 2010 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Of the major languages, Italian is phonetically most similar to Spanish and lexically most similar to French.
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| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5346 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 3 of 25 15 May 2010 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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First of all, welcome to the forum SPQR Etruria!
As another native speaker I share your first impression that Italian is closer to Spanish than to any other romance language, at least as far as mutual-intelligibility goes. Unfortunately I don’t know either French or Spanish well enough to have an opinion about their lexical or grammatical structure, but if most linguists agree that the closer language is French, I wouldn’t dismiss their opinion too easily. Our position as native speakers may render us blind or unobservant to aspects of our own language that are crystal-clear for those coming to it with fresh eyes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5831 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 4 of 25 16 May 2010 at 12:51am | IP Logged | ||
And what about Portuguese, the most spoken Romance language after Spanish? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JPike1028 Triglot Senior Member United States piketransitions Joined 5396 days ago 297 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, French, Italian Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech | Message 5 of 25 16 May 2010 at 11:15am | IP Logged | ||
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A linguistically gifted friend of mine commented recently at the remarkable similarity between Romanian and Italian. He said that the two were very similar, having not studied Romanian though I could not tell you first hand. I would venture to say that any romance language would be similar enough to not pose too much of a problem. I am currently working my way through French and have a pretty good go of it. I was once told by a man from Brazil in regards to Portuguese that he would understand anything a Spanish, French or Italian speaking person would say to him, but they would have a difficult time understanding him. I personally found Portuguese to be very similar to Italian as well though.
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| SPQR Etruria Diglot Newbie Italy Joined 5306 days ago 14 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Italian*, English | Message 6 of 25 16 May 2010 at 2:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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As a matter of phonetic and mutual intellegibility; i must say that i find Spanish as the most clearly intellegible (i understand entire speeches, and the topic they are talking about, if they speak slowly)
as second comes French (i sometimes may understand some speeches, and not always the topic they are talking about, i must say that i've studied French in High school thought) as third Portuguese (an obscure language, i may catch some words) and than Romanian (maybe an even more obscure language than Portuguese) My opinion is that if the Pronounce of French was more clear and similar to that of an Italian speaker, it could have been maybe more intellegible than Spanish) Infact the written form is clearly intellegible like the Spanish one, if not even more than it, than it comes written Portuguese very intellegible too, the last is Romanian Edited by SPQR Etruria on 16 May 2010 at 2:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5817 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 7 of 25 18 May 2010 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | ||
I wouldn't take the lexical similarity at face value. Lexical similarity, word frequency, and pronunciation combined is a better gauge in telling which Romance languages are more mutually intelligible. I would assume that the above statistics on lexical similarity includes heaps of infrequent words as well, that are not much encountered in normal/regular daily conversation/communication. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| anamsc Triglot Senior Member Andorra Joined 6202 days ago 296 posts - 382 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French | Message 8 of 25 18 May 2010 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Looking at Italian phonology, it seems to be more similar to Catalan than Spanish. Add to that the lexical similarity, and I think that Catalan may be the most similar language to Italian. Italian speakers, can you understand spoken Catalan as well as/better than you understand Spanish?
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