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Spanish-Italian Transparency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 9 of 52 10 January 2010 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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About a decade ago, I was in Turkey, and some Italians were visiting and I was the only means of communication, translating Spanish-Turkish and vice versa.
After a while of this, I needed to go to the toilet. They were relieved when I came back, as while I was out of the room there was no communication bridge at all. I think people just smiled at each other. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Impiegato Triglot Senior Member Sweden bsntranslation. Joined 5432 days ago 100 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Italian Studies: Spanish, French, Russian | Message 10 of 52 10 January 2010 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have studied Spanish and Italian. I began with Spanish and then continued with Italian at the university. My impressions are:
- the transparency is not as large as one could imagine. It seems like it is in the middle of Swedish-Norwegian and Swedish-German transparency. - People from Spanish-talking countries have told me that they cannot read an Italian text without problems. Of course, it depends on the type of text: is it a standard novel, a newspaper or a complicated magazine on a specific topic? The first time I visited Italy was before I started studying Italian. I used Spanish when I talked to Italians and they understood. The problem was that I didn't understand their response, because they answered in Italian. Another interesting remark is that I found confusions between Italian and Spanish a lot more common when I studied Italian and already had knowledge of Spanish compared to the situation a few years before when I studied Spanish and French at the same time. Though, French is quite different from the other Romance languages because of four features which I will not write about now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5494 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 11 of 52 10 January 2010 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Last year my Latin professor told the class he once visited Italy, but he did not speak
any Italian. He used Latin to communicate in shops & restaurants, and to ask for directions. Most people were able to understand him, and when they spoke Italian back, he was able to understand the essential information of what they were trying to say. I'm not sure if Classical Latin is closer to Italian than Spanish is to the latter, but I thought I'd share this because it is a similar situation to what FX mentioned. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 12 of 52 10 January 2010 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It is widely thought that Italian is the closest modern Romance language to Latin, so perhaps that is some proof, unless they had some exposure to school Latin and actually remembered it.
This is at a tangent, but in the 1580s, an Englishman named Richard Baines travelled through northern France in order to study at the Rheims Catholic seminary (it turned out he was going there to spy on them for the English government). It was specifically mentioned that on his journey there, he used no French, which he presumably did not know, but got by on Latin. Whether this says something about Latin-16th century French transparency, or merely says something about the state of Latin knowledge in France at the time, I don't know. Perhaps a bit of both. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Impiegato Triglot Senior Member Sweden bsntranslation. Joined 5432 days ago 100 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Italian Studies: Spanish, French, Russian | Message 13 of 52 10 January 2010 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Italian and Latin are probably still closer than Italian and Spanish. However, a change may be in progress due to the large number of English loan words that are being assimilated into the Italian language. Latin never came into contact with English and could therefore not be changed. Look at an ordinary Italian newspaper and you will find quite a number of English words.
The arabic influence on Spanish has probably moved the language a bit away from Italian, but also Spanish is today highly influenced by English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5452 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 14 of 52 10 January 2010 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This I have very hard to believe, at least if we are talking about Classical Latin and not some kind of Medieval Latin. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Impiegato Triglot Senior Member Sweden bsntranslation. Joined 5432 days ago 100 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Italian Studies: Spanish, French, Russian | Message 15 of 52 10 January 2010 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I meant Medieval Latin (the spoken Latin in Italy turned into Italian later), not Classical Latin. Besides, we have to discuss what aspects of Italian/Spanish we refer to. * If we refer to grammar, Italian and Spanish are today a lot closer than Medieval Latin and Italian today. The reason is that today's Romance languages simplified the Latin grammar. * If we refer to vocabulary, it is not certain that Italian and Spanish are closer than Italian and Medieval Latin. Looking at morphology, such as verb endings (the infinitive form), you can see that Italian and Latin are identical for the most common conjugation whereas Spanish and Italian are not. However, it is really hard to make a comparison since the technological revolution in the 20th Century (and also in 21th Century) has created new words which did not exist when latin was spoken. There are also a lot of other things that did not exist back in those days. Edited by Impiegato on 10 January 2010 at 9:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5452 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 16 of 52 10 January 2010 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
OK. Some text in Medival Latin are possibly closer to modern Romance languages than to Classical Latin. Edited by tractor on 10 January 2010 at 10:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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