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Catalan is not a dialect

  Tags: Catalan | Dialect
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46 messages over 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
mrwarper
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 Message 41 of 46
04 November 2012 at 8:46am | IP Logged 
Saim wrote:
I'm sorry to revive this thread, but I just had to deal with some factual errors that haven't been addressed.

Cainntear won't reply and I'm not versed in the dialects of Catalan, Valencian, etc. so I don't think this will go any further...

Quote:
mrwarper wrote:
Catalan has some orthographic features that are not present in Spanish... and... 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.

Would you mind giving a better one, then?
Just when exactly are two 'entities', lacking a better term, separate languages and when aren't they?

Edited by mrwarper on 04 November 2012 at 8:48am

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Skuld
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 Message 42 of 46
04 November 2012 at 4:14pm | IP Logged 
This thread reminds me a piece of news sequence on a local TV a month and a half ago or so. It was in a Primary School, where the teacher made their little students to draw and colour Catalonian indepentist flags. Beneath the flag, on the image she proudly showed to the interviewer, it was suppposed to be written something like 'Independece' in any language it was taught at the school such as Catalan, Spanish or English. The final word was 'Indapandànsia'. Definitively glorious.

Moments like these ones seems to me to be signals of the apocalypse; now I only have to stay still and wait for the sounds of the end of the world approaching.

Edited by Skuld on 04 November 2012 at 9:44pm

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Medulin
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 Message 43 of 46
04 November 2012 at 6:31pm | IP Logged 
Catalan and Spanish are not unlike Kajkavian Croatian and Shtokavian Croatian.

Kajkavian is considered a dialect of (Serbo)Croatian, even tho' it's more similar to standard Slovenian than to standard Serbo-Croatian (which is in fact a standardized Shtokavian dialect).

Croatian languages/dialects:

1. Chakavian (we could call it Croatian)
2. Kajkavian (we could call it SlovenoCroatian)
3. Shtokavian (we could call it SerboCroatian)


Serbian languages/dialects:
1. Shtokavian (we could call it SerboCroatian)
2. Torlakian (could call it SerboBulgarian)

There is a dialect continuum from Castillian -->Aragonese --->Catalan --->Occitan,
just like there is a dialect continuum from Slovenian--->Croatian--->Bosnian--> Montenegrin--->Serbian--->Macedonian--->Bulgarian

Or Danish--->Bokmaal--->Eastern Norwegian dialects---> Central Norwegian dialects --> Northern Norwegian dialects--->Western Norwegian dialects / Nynorsk.


As for Valencian/Catalan/Balear...
Having learned Spanish and not Catalan, Valencian, Balear...
I can understand spoken Valencian, but not spoken Catalan or spoken Balear.
(You can test yourself here, local Spanish news:
http://www.rtve.es/television/linformatiu-comunitat-valencia na/

Written Catalan is not that difficult (I studied Italian for two years, so it helps a lot)

Edited by Medulin on 04 November 2012 at 7:03pm

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Iversen
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 Message 44 of 46
05 November 2012 at 12:35am | IP Logged 
I won't go into a discussion about the internal division lines of Croatian, but for Castillian and Catalan the situation is fairly clear: both have dialects, but there is not a dialect continuum between them right now. You can of course mix them, like you can hear mixed Filipino and English in Manila, and there are Castillan influences (including loanwords in Catalan .. less the other way), but the demarcation line between the two is well marked.

Valencian (which in my opinion clearly is a dialect of the language mostly called Catalan) has lost some of its territory, but not to a mixture like English with Scottish accent - either people in the contested area speak Spanish or they speak Valencian (and in Catalunya most inhabitants still speak fairly pure Catalan).

As for Balearic Catalan I have only spent a couple of days in Palma de Mallorca and had at first some trouble understanding the locals - including an elderly man at the reception at my hotel), but certainly not because he spoke Spanish - he just spoke the Balearic variant of Catalan which I hadn't heard yet. But either it was that dialect or it was Castillian, not a mixture or hybrid.

Once upon a time the language situation in the North Eastern part of the Iberic Peninsula was more complicated because there was a language or dialect called Aragonese (or Navarra-Aragonese) wedged in between Castilian and Catalan, and also because Occitan which was spoken to the North was at least as close to Catalan as Castillan was. But Aragonese has for all practical purposes disappeared, and Catalan has moved in parallel with Castillan while - or maybe even because - Occitan was crushed by the French rulers and clergy. So it has become more 'Spanish', but without merging with Castillian.

As far as I know I have never heard Aragonese, but I have for the purpose of this discussion looked at a couple of texts in Modern Aragonese here, and I have listened to Mario fablando at Youtube. If there were more Marios I could understand the talk about a dialect continuum, but the reality seems to be that even the self-nominated "último aragonés" speaks Castillian these days. There may be a valiant minority who wants to keep it alive, but as a whole Aragón has been speaking Castilian for a very long time now. And Navarra speaks French.

Skuld wrote:
The final word was 'Indapandànsia'. Definitively glorious.


Bad spelling, but actually the word would sound close to that in Barcelona so all hope is not lost. Those kids can listen.

Edited by Iversen on 06 November 2012 at 1:51am

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beano
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 Message 45 of 46
05 November 2012 at 12:37pm | IP Logged 
Spanish and Catalan must be very close. I remember visiting museums in Barcelona and the explanatory text would be provided in the two languages....it looked pretty similar in many cases. I also saw numerous "bilingual" signs where an identical message was printed twice!

Edited by beano on 05 November 2012 at 12:37pm

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lewevanhoop
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 Message 46 of 46
27 January 2013 at 11:30pm | IP Logged 
In writing Catalan and Castillian are very close but in speech there are very real and
definate differences to the point that as i study both i am not really mixing them.


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