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Romance Language Question

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quendidil
Diglot
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Singapore
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Speaks: Mandarin, English*
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 9 of 20
16 April 2010 at 10:44am | IP Logged 
From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts is a book completely devoted to this subject; you'll get the most benefit out of it if you know Latin though.
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Alejeather
Triglot
Newbie
United States
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian

 
 Message 10 of 20
16 April 2010 at 12:31pm | IP Logged 
Another pattern that surprised me is a correspondence between ll- and pi-, though there
are much fewer words that follow this pattern than have corresponding endings. Some
examples would be:
llover -- piovere
lleno -- pieno
llanura -- pianura

But it's not that all words that start with ll- in Spanish start with pi- in
Italian(ie: llamar == chiamare) but when I noticed this correspondence, I had a much
easier time remembering the Italian word for rain!

There are also a lot of cases where words that begin with an f- in other romance
languages begin with an h- in Spanish. Again, this isn't a regular correspondence, but
may help you be able to identify Italian words if you know their Spanish equivalents.
hacer -- fare (While these two have more than just the first letter different, I wanted
to include it because it is an incredibly common word that starts with an f- in other
romance languages that I am aware of. fazer - Portuguese, fer - Catalan, faire -
French)
hierro (or fierro) -- ferro
hambre -- fame
hondo -- fondo
harina -- farina


Edited by Alejeather on 16 April 2010 at 12:31pm

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NativeLanguage
Octoglot
Groupie
United States
nativlang.com
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Speaks: French, Spanish, English*, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek, Portuguese, Catalan
Studies: Japanese, Mayan languages, Irish

 
 Message 11 of 20
16 April 2010 at 6:02pm | IP Logged 
I apologize if this is a bit heavy on the linguistic terminolgy, but romance languages and linguistics are my passion.

The shared shape of the words you're noticing is due to their being cognates of a single late Latin word. The differences are due to regular sound change.

In the first set of words, you're seeing some of the outcomes of Latin initial pl-.

Latin, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese
pluvere, llover (/j/), piovere (/pj/), chover
clamare, llamar, chiamare (/kj/), chamar

Same rules also apply to initial Latin cl-, and voiced counterparts bl- (*blondu > Italian biondo /'bjondo/), gl- (*glaciu > Italian ghiaccio /'gjattSo/), so we could say it's a "plosive + L" rule. In other words, it's the rule that determines the various outcomes (reflexes) of Latin words that start with a stop consonant followed by "l".

The outcome of Latin f- IS a regular correspondence (that is, a regular sound change) that applies to non-learned words. Later medieval Spanish changed initial f > h (and eventually f > h > 0, or complete silence). The EXCEPTIONS are learned Latin words,so we have Spanish hurto 'theft' with a corresponding learned Spanish word furtivo 'furtive' (these can be seen as two separate cognates, one hurto deriving directly from old Vulgar Latin, the other furt- much later, from the academic & ecclesiastic acrolect). In fact, an Occitan dialect/language known as Gascon is undergoing the same change, and is in the intermediate stage in which initial h- is still aspirated (VLat *fumu > Gasc hum 'smoke'). Other Romance languages keep that initial f- (*fumu > Spanish humo, Gascon hum vs. Portuguese fumo, Catalan fum, Italian fumo, Sardinian fumu, Romanian fum, etc.).

The key is, the correspondences you're pointing out are absolutely systemic in how they define the relations between Romance languages. For instance, how do the various languages above deal with final Vulgar Latin -u? What happens to intervocalic consonants (particularly voiceless plosives)? We can see the commonalities between words (especially when spelling obscures their differences) and also the way words changed within individual languages. Apply this at the level of grammar, or morphosyntax - what's similar about the verbs and nouns in the various Romance languages, for instance? Knowing that those, too, derived from Latin, what can we say about the common Vulgar Latin parent's noun and verb system? You'll find that the same type of analysis applies there, too.

This isn't a pointless linguistic exercise. Identifying the patterns and the shape of the parent language behind them makes languages that initially look so different as Spanish, French and Italian a lot easier to learn in combination.
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alang
Diglot
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Canada
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 Message 12 of 20
16 April 2010 at 11:32pm | IP Logged 

The future written tense of Spanish words for example pensaré and volaré to the infinitive of Italian pensare and volare. Of course without the emphasized accent in Italian.
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tractor
Tetraglot
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Norway
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 Message 13 of 20
17 April 2010 at 12:34am | IP Logged 
alang wrote:
The future written tense of Spanish words for example pensaré and volaré to the infinitive of
Italian pensare and volare. Of course without the emphasized accent in Italian.

The future tense in modern Romance languages, at least in Catalan, French and Spanish, are developed from a
periphrastic construction (infinitive + present indicative of HABERE): cantaré (< cantar he); cantarás (< cantar has);
cantará (< cantar ha) …

Edited by tractor on 17 April 2010 at 8:36am

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Marc Frisch
Heptaglot
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Germany
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Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Persian, Tamil

 
 Message 14 of 20
17 April 2010 at 1:55am | IP Logged 
An incredibly good reference on this subject is:
Paul Teyssier - Comprendre les langues romanes


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victor-osorio
Diglot
Groupie
Venezuela
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73 posts - 129 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 15 of 20
17 April 2010 at 2:59am | IP Logged 
I can also add:

Spanish / Italian

PL - PI

Planeta - Pianeta
Planta - Pianta

J - SS

Roja - Rossa
Caja - Cassa

UE - O

Aeropuerto - Aeroporto
Cuello - Collo

CT - TT

Traductor - Traduttore
Doctor - Dottore
Perfecto - Perfetto

CUL - COL

Minúsculo - Minuscolo
Músculo - Muscolo

IE - E

Mie#da - Me#da
Tienda - Tenda


ABS - ASS

Absurdo - Assurdo
Absoluto - Assoluto



Anyway, is good to remember that these patterns occur in certain words but not in all
the words. Some Spanish speakers are said to speak something called "italgnolo"; that
means, when they don't know a particular word in Italian they say that word in Spanish
adapting it with patterns like this but lots of times they say a word that doesn't
exists in Italian. For example:

- Some guy knows that most words in Spanish that end with -cionar, like accionar and
mencionar, are easily translated to Italian just changing the last part with -zionare,
like azionare and menzionare.

Then when he is going to say "estacionar" he says "stazionare". WRONG.
Parcheggiare is the right word.


Edited by victor-osorio on 17 April 2010 at 3:11am

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alang
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
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Speaks: English*, Spanish

 
 Message 16 of 20
23 April 2010 at 2:02am | IP Logged 
Marc Frisch wrote:
An incredibly good reference on this subject is:
Paul Teyssier - Comprendre les langues romanes


I just ordered the book from France, but I do not know French. When I learn French next year, I hope the book will help accelerate on the three others Portuguese, Italian and Romanian. Too bad there is not more languages in the Latin family.


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