Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Shared vocabulary of Italian, German, and Russian

 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room Post Reply
24 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
albysky
Triglot
Senior Member
Italy
lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4148 days ago

287 posts - 393 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, English, German

 
 Message 1 of 24
29 May 2013 at 7:44pm | IP Logged 
Does Italian share more vocabulary with German or russian ? Could you give me a rough
percentage ?
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6357 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 2 of 24
29 May 2013 at 9:14pm | IP Logged 
maybe 20% with German and 10% with Russian? just a guess. I'd say that with both languages, English will give you a more significant advantage than your native language.
BTW Polish has more Latin and German loans than Russian.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6199 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 3 of 24
29 May 2013 at 9:14pm | IP Logged 
Italian shares more vocabulary with German. The percentage isn't particularly high with either language - most shared vocabulary is borrowed from other languages (like English, Latin, and Greek), or has shared Indo-European roots but has undergone significant sound shifts (for instance, brother/frato/bruder/брат (brat)). For the latter, I recommend "The Loom of Languages" as a good introduction.

2 persons have voted this message useful



Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4816 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 4 of 24
29 May 2013 at 9:46pm | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:
Italian shares more vocabulary with German.

Why does it happen?
1 person has voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4890 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 5 of 24
29 May 2013 at 10:26pm | IP Logged 
Марк wrote:
Volte wrote:
Italian shares more vocabulary with German.

Why does it happen?

Historically, there's been much more contact between Italy and ancient Rome and Germanic
peoples than there was between Italy and Russia. I would imagine that has a lot to do
with it.

R.
==
1 person has voted this message useful



Cabaire
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5359 days ago

725 posts - 1352 votes 

 
 Message 6 of 24
30 May 2013 at 12:16am | IP Logged 
I think, apart from technological terminology, the overlap between Russian and Italian is quite low, especially in literature.

If I take one page from the fantasy novel, I am just reading (Night watch), there are 266 words. This novel uses a modern style, where you find more internationalisms than in a more traditional style

An Italian might understand:

- станция (well, it means station, but Italian stanza means chamber)
- амулет 3x: amuleto
- знергия: energia
- термометр: termometro
- интеллект: inteletto
- вагон 2x: vagone
- металл: metallo
- бетон: beton
- структура: struttura
- эффект: effetto
- мигрень: emicrania

13 from 266 are 5 %.

If you take a text about computers, the quota is certainly higher, but in fictional texts I guess 3%-5% is the most you will get without learning slavic vocablulary.


Edited by Cabaire on 30 May 2013 at 2:35am

2 persons have voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6199 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 7 of 24
30 May 2013 at 12:34am | IP Logged 
I second what Cabaire says, but some high-frequency words do become obvious (at least in retrospect) once you know about sound shifts and have a bit of a feeling for etymology. A lot of family terms fit into this category; so do some numbers (due/two/zwei/два (dva), tre/three/drei/три (tri)), etc. These similarities are uncommon enough that they're not much use in predicting words, but can certainly make them easier to recognize and remember.

Марк: I don't know why, exactly. I do get the impression that there has been more cultural and intellectual contact between German and Latin (and between the Romance and Germanic languages in general) than between the Romance and/or Germanic languages and the Slavic ones. Call it an accident of history and geography, just like how Russian is closer to English than, say, Persian and Hindi are, despite the shared roots of all of them.

1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6357 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 8 of 24
30 May 2013 at 10:04am | IP Logged 
Cabaire wrote:
- станция (well, it means station, but Italian stanza means chamber)
there's also stazione :)

Edited by Serpent on 30 May 2013 at 10:05am



1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 24 messages over 3 pages: 2 3  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3750 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.