Portuguese language: melodious, beautiful and difficult!
Ygor Coelho
a patriotic man, I decided to ask you what you think about the
portuguese language. I think it is one of the most important languages
in the world, as english, spanish or chinese. Portuguese is spoken by
220 million people in the world (only Brazil has 175 million!) and it
is the third most spoken european language. Besides, it isn't only
important to learn it: it is interesting. The portuguese language is
the most rich language in spite of vocabulary. It is melodious and
very beautiful. The grammar is a lot difficult, but I think anyone can
learn it.
And you, what do you think about portuguese? Is it really difficult
and what is difficult?
M. Ranjit Mathews
Another language. There are Portugese words in Indian languages.
In Malayalam:
vi:nju = wine
maes'a = table
kas'a:ra = chair
jenel = window
In Hindi:
kamara: = room
pa~v = bread
> Is it really difficult
> and what is difficult?
Would you say that Portugese is, in any way, easier than Latin?
I find Italian the easiest Romance language.
NuncEstBibendum
> And you, what do you think about portuguese?
I for one think that the Brazilian accent (a better
word might be melody) can be irritating. Sorry about that - nothing
personal. I very much prefer the Portuguese one.
Christopher Green
Portuguese is indeed a beautiful, musical language. A quick session
with any of Bidu Sayao's old recordings should be sufficient to dispel
any belief to the contrary.
But it might as well be Greek to me. I speak passable Spanish, but I
find Portuguese totally impenetrable. My father took his Ph.D. in
Latin American Studies and said that the hardest thing he had to do
for his degree was to learn Portuguese.
--
Chris Green
fat...@attglobal.net
news:b5748cbf.02120...@posting.google.com...
I think how people will view it, regarding its importance in the world, is
mainly based on their exposure to it. For example, I live in California,
where Portuguese is a pretty rare thing. But most people would consider
Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, French, etc. to be important languages. I
don't think most people here realize how there are so many Portuguese
speakers out there.
Peter T. Daniels
> Portuguese is indeed a beautiful, musical language. A quick session
> with any of Bidu Sayao's old recordings should be sufficient to dispel
> any belief to the contrary.
Why? Not that many operas are sung in Portuguese.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Ygor Coelho
but it has been important to the evolution of the languages, because
it has contribuited with many words in several languages.
I think the portuguese language is very difficult. Can you believe
that many people in Brazil have difficulty to speak correctly
portuguese? I think portuguese isn't difficult because of the verbs,
as a lot of people told me, but because it has a lot of "excessions",
the grammar isn't flexible as the english one.
I think the brazilian accent is better than the portuguese accent,
because the pronunciation is more opened and sounds clearly, instead
of the portuguese accent, more closed and cutting several vowels! But
each one has his or her opinion!
Christopher, do you like opera? I like very much opera and specially
Bidu Sayão! Have you heard "Canção da Saudade" with her? The
portuguese language sounds very beautiful on it! Really, there aren't
many operas sung in portuguese, but the most of them aren't sung and
it agravates this! Villa-Lobos, for example, composed 7 operas, but
any of them are sung nowadays...
I think the portuguese is forgotten by the world! A big part of the
north-americans still think the official language in Brazil is
spanish. It's unbelievable to a developed country as United States,
where most of the people has been at schools unless once in their
life!
Christopher Green
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Christopher Green wrote:
>
>> Portuguese is indeed a beautiful, musical language. A quick session
>> with any of Bidu Sayao's old recordings should be sufficient to dispel
>> any belief to the contrary.
>
>Why? Not that many operas are sung in Portuguese.
But she also sang quite a bit of material in Portuguese: the air from
Bachianas Brasileiras is certainly the best known, but she recorded a
good deal of art songs and folk songs in Portuguese as well.
--
Chris Green
Peter T. Daniels
I always thought that was a wordless piece, like Gličre's Concerto for
Coloratura ...
I daresay she's not known in the US for Brasilian folk songs or
Portuguese art songs(??).
Unfortunately I became aware of her long after she'd retired --
basically from her charming appearances on Singers' Round Tables during
Met Opera broadcasts -- and know only that she was considered a
consummate Mozartean. (And didn't she appear at James Levine's 25th
Anniversary Gala and warble a few notes?)
dmitri
>> with any of Bidu Sayao's old recordings should be sufficient to dispel
>> any belief to the contrary.
>
>Why? Not that many operas are sung in Portuguese.
>--
She DID sing other stuff than just opera, Petey.
Dmitri Mosier
mb
> I think the portuguese is forgotten by the world! A big part of the
> north-americans still think the official language in Brazil is
> spanish. It's unbelievable to a developed country as United States,
> where most of the people has been at schools unless once in their
> life!
Before moving to the US of A, I also found the rumors about schools
here were unbelievable. Now, with two teenagers in the house, I can
see that reality beats fiction; there's incredibly little of school
learning as we know it. They learn other, very useful things, though,
like how not to "hurt feelings", managing money, decorating, etc.,
which aren't taught in other countries.
Chris
> And you, what do you think about portuguese? Is it really difficult
> and what is difficult?
If I were to make a list (which I did long ago) of languages which I
found nice to listen to, the Carioca accent would be (was) #1. I just
love the way it sounds.
As for being difficult. Since I already speak Spanish & French, it
isn't difficult at all. But I don't speak it fluently since I never
really studied it in-depth. What gives me problems is the open/closed
pronunciations of /e/ and /o/ in certain positions.
--Chris
Peter T. Daniels
Hey Dimwit (how NICE to have you back), he said "any" of her recordings.
I don't even have to bother finding out what proportion of her
recordings are in Portuguese to know that the statement is false.
Christopher Green
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
[snip]
>I always thought that was a wordless piece, like Gličre's Concerto for
>Coloratura ...
It's in three parts: the first and last are wordless, but the middle
part has words.
>I daresay she's not known in the US for Brasilian folk songs or
>Portuguese art songs(??).
She didn't have too much of a career in the US or a following here:
too bad, I think. The usual excuse is that her voice wasn't big enough
for American opera houses. Heitor Villa-Lobos was a colleague of hers
and wrote a fair amount of material particularly for her.
>Unfortunately I became aware of her long after she'd retired --
>basically from her charming appearances on Singers' Round Tables during
>Met Opera broadcasts -- and know only that she was considered a
>consummate Mozartean. (And didn't she appear at James Levine's 25th
>Anniversary Gala and warble a few notes?)
--
Chris Green
michael farris
dmitri wrote:
On more than one occasion in public she claimed her home language when
growing up wasn't Portuguese but French.
-michael farris
dmitri
"back"? I've been here all along, Petey, dear. I just didn't see anything
stupid enough to warrant my time to reply.
just curious: how come you only reply (and so rudely, yet) to me on this
aspect of this thread when there was at least one other person who pretty much
said the same thing?
And btw, your attempt at cleaverness doesn't work: my name is spelled without
an "I" between the "D" and the "M"
d.
Dmitri Mosier
julien daux
As a native french speaker, I find Portuguese pleasant in songs, but
tiring in speech. There are too many consonnants clusters, too many
"sh"-sounds, the melody is quite unique I must say but after a while, it
turns into too much a melancholy-burdened "complainte". But note :
Poruguese sounds 1000 times prettier than Spanish - too guttural,
unclearly pronounced, nasal and leak.
--
Julien
opidds 1 2 12h e
fir 2 16 a -
Ygor Coelho
north-american and that she was very patriot. I don't think she would
say french is her native language. It's because she was the daughter
of a portuguese man and a french woman. Maybe, she considered
portuguese and french her native languages...
I think these activities the north-americans learn how to do are
important, but I think a person can't live in the world with a critic
and true thought of all the sorts of situations we can find in the
world without to learn a basic history and geography about other
countries. The north-americans seem to be closed to their country: for
them, there are two worlds: the USA and the rest. It's a wrong way to
learn! (not to save money or things like this, but I'm talking about
learning to the life).
If the carioca accent is beautiful, it's because the sounds and the
words of the portuguese language sounds really beautiful. There aren't
strange sounds and the words flow softly when they are spoken. I don't
think the carioca accent is beautiful, but the northeastern. It's
opinion! The difference between the opened and the closed sounds of O
and E isn't flexible: the sounds change according to the accent. The
northeastern commonly say ECONOMIA with the E opened but in the
southern it sounds closed. :)
Ygor
michael farris <m...@amu.edu.pl> wrote in message news:<3DF3006C...@amu.edu.pl>...
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Well, I only know Bidu Sayão refused to change her nationality in
> north-american and that she was very patriot. I don't think she would
> say french is her native language. It's because she was the daughter
> of a portuguese man and a french woman. Maybe, she considered
> portuguese and french her native languages...
> I think these activities the north-americans learn how to do are
> important, but I think a person can't live in the world with a critic
> and true thought of all the sorts of situations we can find in the
> world without to learn a basic history and geography about other
> countries. The north-americans seem to be closed to their country: for
> them, there are two worlds: the USA and the rest. It's a wrong way to
> learn! (not to save money or things like this, but I'm talking about
> learning to the life).
Why are you using "North American" to refer to the US? There are 8 other
countries in North America, not to mention the Caribbean. Canadians,
Mexicans, Belizeans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans,
and Panamanians are also North Americans.
"American" is the most common term for "US citizen," because the country
doesn't actually have a name of its own (like the United States of
Mexico or the United States of Brazil).
Ygor Coelho
mixture of french and spanish: it isn't so closed as french but it
isn't also so opened and guttural as spanish. The words are pronounced
clearly, unless in the brazilian accent. The nasal sounds are
beautiful and melodious, instead of the non-nasal sounds before M and
N. They sounds to me very "rude", I don't know how to explain! I think
the french pronunciation the most strange in the world, because the
french speakers speak as if they are whispering, too closed and the
words are pronounced too strongly.
By the way, what is "sh-sound". Is this the famous "chiado" in the
pronunciation of ARTE, for example? It isn't a characteristic of the
portuguese, it's an accent. The carioca, some southern and some
northeastern accents have this pronunciation.
Ygor
Chergarj
>pronunciation of ARTE, for example? It isn't a characteristic of the
There is a hard sound of -ch- such as when you say the English words CHAIR,
CHECK, RICHARD, etc.
You may consider this -ch- sound to be composed of two different sounds. The
first is the sound made by the letter, "t". The next sound is a soft,
voiceless utterence... I cannot explain it any better. Maybe a linguist on
this newsgroup can explain it.
G C
Christopher Green
In Mexico, "norteamericano" refers specifically, if colloquially, to
the US. I don't know whether this usage extends to other Latin
American countries; Ygor's usage of "north-americans" gives the
impression that it may be current in Brazil.
--
Chris Green
julien daux
> I don't think so. The portuguese language sounds to me like the
> mixture of french and spanish: it isn't so closed as french but it
> isn't also so opened and guttural as spanish. The words are pronounced
> clearly, unless in the brazilian accent.
That's normal, everyone's one language always sounds clearlier than
another one...
As a matter of fact, I find French prononciation clearer, more tempered
than in Portuguese. For example Portuguese "a" in "para"
(IPA : upside-down "a") sound very dark. Portuguese has diphtongs, nasals
are "unpure" ( = end of articulation of nasal vowels finished by a nasal
consonnant appendix), there are even some nasal diphtongues, some vowels
are merely squizzed or whispered ("verbos" sounds like "verbsh", "-gados"
sounds like "-gathsh", with English "th" in "that" and "sh" in "shy")
hence a reason for the cosonnant clusters.
Another example of "unclear" prononciation : the "l" in "lindo", or
"alto", that is back and get modulated in time ("lindo" sounds like
"lla-inth(oo)" with back "ll" as in "well", a simili "ah"-sound (trying
to) noting the "l" modulation, and finally a dying final "oo").
> I think
> the french pronunciation the most strange in the world,
for me it's english (both GB and US). Hot-potato-like.
> because the
> french speakers speak as if they are whispering,
? French vowels are clear and sonnant, aren't they ?
At least, I've been made to trust it reading some comparative books. I
thought it was an objective fact (sure, as French, i think it IS...)
> too closed
we have everything, closed, opened, half-opened vowels !!!
what is often said is that French is a lip-twister.
> and the
> words are pronounced too strongly.
does that mean "clearly" ?
>
> By the way, what is "sh-sound".
"sh-sound" is the Portuguese way to pronounce some "s".
verbos -> verboosh
fizes -> fiz'sh
posto -> posh't(oo)
This sound appears too often, i think.
Manuel Silva
little hard to understand at syntax level, but not very hard at phonetics
level, we have 14 vowel sounds including the nasal one's, in spanish there
are only 5 vowels, thats why they dont understand a word of Portuguese, for
French i dont know exactlly how many vowel sounds (phonemes) they have but i
think it's quite similar to portuguese, just like italian, the reason for
this similarity is obvious! Latin influenced Iberian Peninsula and France
territory for hundreds of years, and if you ever read latin you will notice
that the vowels are mainly opened.. And the consonants are almost the same
as in Portuguese, French and Spanish,
As for English, it's my second language and i can say it's very easy to
learn at sintax level, and almost all the phonemes are used in portuguese
too, this causes every student of english with a reasonable "good hear" to
understand English phonemes and reapeat them almost exactlly (in other words
learn the language). I think that for english speakers, portuguese should
sound ugly and completely unpronouncable because they dont kown how to
understand or speak the phonemes of portuguese.
I bet every language sounds beautiful when it's your native language, and
for languages like english, very pratical and with basic syntatic grammar,
are beatiful also in my opinion for their easy learning process, that
enables all of us here to understand each other on the internet.
BUT i hope that languages like portuguese, Greek, Chinese dont disapear,
though their complex phonetic and syntatic grammar they are very beatiful
when you can understand the phonemes and even better if you understand the
lexicon too. A nice methaphor is eating a McDonadls hamburger(English) or a
refined French Cousine meal.
"julien daux" <da...@ensta.fr> wrote in message
news:3DF46651...@ensta.fr...
> Ygor Coelho a crit :
dmitri
>countries in North America, not to mention the Caribbean. Canadians,
>Mexicans, Belizeans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans,
>and Panamanians are also North Americans.
throughout Spanish-speaking latin america, the denizens of the USA are commonly
referred to as "norteamericanos"........i suspect this is the same in brasil
and it's just a literal translation of the expression.
>"American" is the most common term for "US citizen," because the country
>doesn't actually have a name of its own (like the United States of
>Mexico or the United States of Brazil).
>--
It does in Esperanto <VEG>
Dmitri Mosier
Christopher Green
> On Sat, 07 Dec 2002 14:22:14 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> [snip]
> >I always thought that was a wordless piece, like Gličre's Concerto for
> >Coloratura ...
>
> It's in three parts: the first and last are wordless, but the middle
> part has words.
>
> >I daresay she's not known in the US for Brasilian folk songs or
> >Portuguese art songs(??).
>
> She didn't have too much of a career in the US or a following here:
My apologies to Bidu Sayao fans: she did have a substantial career and
a following at the Met, where she was particularly known for her
Manon.
--
Chris Green
Ygor Coelho
The nasal sounds of portuguese, for who don't know how to speak them,
can sound to their ears very strange but the nasal sounds, really,
have a pronunciation more soft than in non-nasal sounds. For example,
speak the portuguese word ROMANO and the equal italian word ROMANO and
notice it.
The SH-SOUND doesn't appear many times in the portuguese language. You
students learn the carioca accent, which is spoken by about 15 million
people. In this accent, TI and DI sounds as /chee/ and /djee/ and many
accents in Brazil speak as it. But the SH pronunciation substituting
the S is almost unknown in the others accents in Brazil. It represents
160 million people! Besides, although the sintax and grammar of the
portuguese is difficult, people who know them very well, specially
native speakers, can find a lot of ways to change your texts, turning
them more lyric and agradable.
Even if McDonald's and the french restaurants are very good, I prefer
a good and delicious (brazilian!) FEIJOADA! I'm proud of my language
because it is the only one who has a definition to the feeling whe
feel when we miss someone: SAUDADE. It remember me the sentimentality
and the lyricism of the language of mine and of 220 million people in
the world!
P.S: I don't want to humiliate the french language, because I like
very much this language, I think it's very beautiful, but in Brazil
the french is known as a little afeminated when men speak it... I
don't know why!
Ygor
Lee Sau Dan
Ygor> Portuguese is spoken by 220 million
Ygor> people in the world (only Brazil has 175 million!) and it is
Ygor> the third most spoken european language.
This claim sounds stupid. Not that it is wrong. But... why don't you
say it is the FIRST most spoken Portugese language?
Ygor> Besides, it isn't only important to learn it:
How important? Mandarin alone has 800+ million NATIVE speakers, more
than English+Spanish+Portugese.
Ygor> it is interesting. The portuguese language is the most rich
Ygor> language in spite of vocabulary.
How much is it richer than Chinese, which has 5000 years of history?
Ygor> It is melodious and very beautiful.
How much more melodious is it when compared to tone-rich languages,
such as Vietnamese?
Ygor> The grammar is a lot difficult, but I think anyone can learn
Ygor> it.
How much more difficult (and to whom?) is it than Russian?
Ygor> And you, what do you think about portuguese?
What do you think about Cantonese, then?
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Lee Sau Dan
Ygor> Certainly, the portuguese language isn't only important in
Ygor> the world but it has been important to the evolution of the
Ygor> languages, because it has contribuited with many words in
Ygor> several languages.
Did it contribute more word to those languages, than Chinese did to
Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese?
Ygor> I think the portuguese is forgotten by the world!
No. Portugal has been independent for a few centuries since last time
it recovered from Spanish invasion. And even during that period of
Spanish occupation, the Portugal was still hung in Macao, where
Portugese has continued to be an official language even after being
handed over to (communist) China.
Ygor> A big part of the north-americans still think the official
Ygor> language in Brazil is spanish.
Don't generalize their ignorance to the rest of the world.
Ygor> It's unbelievable to a developed country as United States,
Ygor> where most of the people has been at schools unless once in
Ygor> their life!
"unless" or "at least"?
Manuel Silva
I am a native european-Portuguese Language and i also learn a few Mandarin,
so i think i am in position to make some comparisons betwen
Madarin/Portuguese better than you, or do you speak Portuguese?
"Lee Sau Dan" <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in message
news:m3znrfi...@mika.informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
> >>>>> "Ygor" == Ygor Coelho <ygor_...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> Ygor> Portuguese is spoken by 220 million
> Ygor> people in the world (only Brazil has 175 million!) and it is
> Ygor> the third most spoken european language.
>
> This claim sounds stupid. Not that it is wrong. But... why don't you
> say it is the FIRST most spoken Portugese language?
Why do you say it sounds stupid if it is a fact?
Lee Sau Dan said:
"How much is it richer than Chinese, which has 5000 years of history?"
I think this sounds alot more stupid....
>
> Ygor> Besides, it isn't only important to learn it:
>
> How important? Mandarin alone has 800+ million NATIVE speakers, more
> than English+Spanish+Portugese.
Nice :) for everyone... why write it down in a ofensive way?
>
>
> Ygor> it is interesting. The portuguese language is the most rich
> Ygor> language in spite of vocabulary.
>
> How much is it richer than Chinese, which has 5000 years of history?
>
In case you dont kown history has nothing to do with vocabulary....
>
> Ygor> It is melodious and very beautiful.
>
> How much more melodious is it when compared to tone-rich languages,
> such as Vietnamese?
>
In this case i can understand what you say because Mandarin as I kown it is
much more rich in melody than Portuguese,
or any other language that is not tone-based, but it does not lessen the
beatifulness of Portuguese, trust me!
>
> Ygor> The grammar is a lot difficult, but I think anyone can learn
> Ygor> it.
>
> How much more difficult (and to whom?) is it than Russian?
>
>
> Ygor> And you, what do you think about portuguese?
>
> What do you think about Cantonese, then?
>
I have alot of friends that talk cantonese, because they lived in Macau, and
i can say it is a very pleasant language :)
But as i said before the native language always sounds the more beatiful
language to his native speaker, it's a obvious fact!
All the languages have their beauty :)
>
> --
> Lee Sau Dan ”o|uˇ(Big5)
Manuel Silva
or English, and that is the reason of your father's difuculties in
Portuguese.
"Christopher Green" <cj.g...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:c31fa7b1.02120...@posting.google.com...
> ygor_...@hotmail.com (Ygor Coelho) wrote in message
news:<b5748cbf.02120...@posting.google.com>...
> > I'm a brazilian portuguese speaker and I'm interested in languages. As
> > a patriotic man, I decided to ask you what you think about the
> > portuguese language. I think it is one of the most important languages
> > in the world, as english, spanish or chinese. Portuguese is spoken by
> > 220 million people in the world (only Brazil has 175 million!) and it
> > is the third most spoken european language. Besides, it isn't only
> > important to learn it: it is interesting. The portuguese language is
> > the most rich language in spite of vocabulary. It is melodious and
> > very beautiful. The grammar is a lot difficult, but I think anyone can
> > learn it.
> >
> > And you, what do you think about portuguese? Is it really difficult
> > and what is difficult?
>
> Portuguese is indeed a beautiful, musical language. A quick session
> with any of Bidu Sayao's old recordings should be sufficient to dispel
> any belief to the contrary.
>
> But it might as well be Greek to me. I speak passable Spanish, but I
> find Portuguese totally impenetrable. My father took his Ph.D. in
> Latin American Studies and said that the hardest thing he had to do
> for his degree was to learn Portuguese.
>
> --
> Chris Green
Manuel Silva
"M. Ranjit Mathews" <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1d4c67e3.02120...@posting.google.com...
>
> Another language. There are Portugese words in Indian languages.
> In Malayalam:
> vi:nju = wine
> maes'a = table
> kas'a:ra = chair
> jenel = window
>
> In Hindi:
> kamara: = room
> pa~v = bread
>
> > Is it really difficult
> > and what is difficult?
>
> Would you say that Portugese is, in any way, easier than Latin?
> I find Italian the easiest Romance language.
Thank you for sharing that information, it is very interesting for me :)
I am taking a College study in Classics and i find Latin easy to learn the
basics but hard to start read and understand automatically. Italian is much
easier than Latin because the declinations were substituted for prepositions
just like portuguese.
Ygor Coelho
You must be kidding! Why don´t you write a topic about chinese,
japanese, korean or vietnamese? I´m not making a comparison with these
languages. I don´t want, neither. For me, it has no sense to make
comparisons among languages! First, I want to say that in the world,
what people mind is the quantity of people who speak the language and
its importance to this world. Because of this, I think portuguese
might be more learned in the world as well as the chinease might, too.
You seems radical making these comparisons, because portuguese and
chinese are totally different! Notice, for example, that I said the
portuguese contributed with many words to the evolution of several
languages, I didn´t say it was the most important in the evolution of
the languages.
The portuguese language is the richest language in the world. It isn´t
because it is old, as chinese. The portuguese speakers by themself
create lots of words, because the portuguese is very dinamic. The
derivation of words is done all the times! Besides, the portuguese has
taken a lot of words from another languages. The influence of arabic,
english, spanish, french in different periods of its history
contributed with thousands of words. If we count only the arabic
words, we will find more than 1.500 words. From french, I don´t know
how many words we have bringed to our language, but the influence can
be easily noticed! I´m not sure the portuguese is the richest, but
I´ve read in texts it is true and I think so. The portuguese richest
dictionary has 300.000 words, but there are many thousand other words.
In the dictionary, for example, there isn´t the common word AVEXAR and
AVEXADO.
I´ve never heard the vietnamese. So, I can´t say anything!
Good! If the portuguese grammar isn´t as difficult as the russian one,
I´m happy because of it!
I think the cantonese an interesting language, but I´ve never heard
it. :)
Lovecraftesque
> The portuguese language is the richest language in the world. It isn愒
Such jingoistic, emotional statements do not carry any
scientific weight.
> I惴 not sure the portuguese is the richest, but I扉e
> read in texts it is true and I think so.
You might just as well believe in Santa Claus. The
fact that something is committed to paper does not make
it true, just as wishing something true does not make it
true.
Menippos
Ygor Coelho wrote in message ...
I think you are very perceptive, yet fair-minded in your humiliation of
French. But the reason for the afemination is the nasal sounds.
All languages with nasals sound afeminated. French, Polish, yes
even Portuguese. And the sh-sounds merely exaggerate the
afemination. This is too bad because otherwise Portuguese is a
very beautiful language. Especially for music. Cristina Branco is
the best singer in the world. But she is a woman and ipso facto
a priori afeminated. She is also not very attractive. This is not
just an opinion. Most people agree with this.
Of course Galician is more beautiful than Portuguese. And
Spanish is more beautiful still. The most beautiful is Italian.
This is not just an opinion. Many people think so. I would even
say, most thinking people believe that Italian is the most
beautiful language in the world. I know one Rumanian who
thinks Rumanian is beautiful. So I asked him to speak it.
He did. It's not.
I think I should tell you that when Latin started to develop nasal
vowels, it disappeared and was replaced by Italian and Spanish
for those who desired to speak truly beautiful languages, and
French and Portuguese for those who were content with semi-beautiful
and afeminated languages. It is difficult if not impossible in the
long term to sustain a speech community given a sizable percentage
afeminated speakers. But as we are all men of the world here,
we acknowledge that de gushtibush não esht dishputãndão.
Hope this helps.
Menippos
Henry Polard
ygor_...@hotmail.com (Ygor Coelho) wrote:
<big snip>
The beauty of the sound of a language is in the ear of the hearer.
One's favorite language is the best.
The discussions in this thread have been mostly on the order of "my X is
the best (and better than your X)."
I don't see how this sort of discussion is productive or scientific -
after all, this is a sci.* group.
Henry "ni chauve ni chauvin" Polard || Chauve qui peut!
julien daux
>
> If the carioca accent is beautiful, it's because the sounds and the
> words of the portuguese language sounds really beautiful. There aren't
> strange sounds and the words flow softly when they are spoken.
A teacher (not language teacher) told us last week that French was a very poor language
according to the phonemes, and that French did not have any complicated sounds. And then
made several ridiculous mimics to utter a "th", a variant of "sh", and some throat sounds,
no one of this sound existing in any languages (I mean, the way he was trying to pronounce
them).
Strange sounds.... that makes no sound !...
Menippos
Lee Sau Dan wrote in message ...
>>>>>> "Ygor" == Ygor Coelho <ygor_...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> Ygor> Portuguese is spoken by 220 million
> Ygor> people in the world (only Brazil has 175 million!) and it is
> Ygor> the third most spoken european language.
>
>This claim sounds stupid. Not that it is wrong. But... why don't you
>say it is the FIRST most spoken Portugese language?
I agree with this. We should not count Brazilian Portuguese as a
European language. And of course, the less said about the Azores,
the better.
>
>
> Ygor> Besides, it isn't only important to learn it:
>
>How important? Mandarin alone has 800+ million NATIVE speakers, more
>than English+Spanish+Portugese.
This is not a convincing statement. There are other reasons for learning
Portuguese. Knowing Mandarin does you almost no good at all during
Carneval. Carneval is better than any other world-class popular fiesta.
Also, "The Girl from Ipanema" would sound stupid in Mandarin.
But it does sound like Mandarin has wiped out even more indigenous
languages than English+Spanish+Portuguese. Let me know because
I don't want my intended course in classical Tibetan to go for naught.
>
>
> Ygor> it is interesting. The portuguese language is the most rich
> Ygor> language in spite of vocabulary.
>
>How much is it richer than Chinese, which has 5000 years of history?
This is not a relevant statement. Portuguese got richer in a much shorter
period of time than Chinese. This is an inherent virtue of the language.
But language evolution should not be considered a horserace.
>
> Ygor> It is melodious and very beautiful.
>
>How much more melodious is it when compared to tone-rich languages,
>such as Vietnamese?
Tone languages are not melodious. They are in fact quite cacophonous.
No civilization speaking a tone language has ever developed a world-class
musical repertoire. This distinction belongs to the Germans and
the Italians, neither of whom speak a tonal language.
> Ygor> The grammar is a lot difficult, but I think anyone can learn
> Ygor> it.
>
>How much more difficult (and to whom?) is it than Russian?
Russian is more difficult than Portuguese. It is also more beautiful,
having neither nasal sounds nor tones. Coincidentally, there is no
world literature which is superior to the Russian. This is a universally
acknowledged fact.
> Ygor> And you, what do you think about portuguese?
>
>What do you think about Cantonese, then?
I hear Cantonese a lot. I think Mandarin sounds a lot better.
Even Wu sounds better than Cantonese. "The fewer tones the
better". This is the linguistic analogue of the ancient theological
principle "the fewer gods the better". The best thing is, of course,
to have no tone at all. This is the aesthetic ideal enunciated by Keats.
I must say I am deeply dismayed by many of the misconceptions
evidenced here regarding Portuguese. This is a language which
would be confined to the Iberian peninsula today, were it not for the
Pope. In fact, it is just possible that had the Chinese adopted an
alphabet as proposed by Portuguese Jesuits, they might have
succeeded in getting to the moon first. Instead they reverted to isolation
and stagnation. This is not to say that the Chinese do not have a
world-class cuisine, a distinction they share with the French, another
inward-looking and stagnant society. Clearly, nasals and tones do not
preclude excellence in the gustatory arts; they may in fact enhance it.
Of course, with the French, the gourmand is always has his doubts
as to ingredients. In contradistinction to the Chinese, where, because
of the palatal challenge, one suspects but tolerates.
Menippos
Menippos
Henry Polard wrote in message ...
>In article <b5748cbf.02120...@posting.google.com>,
> ygor_...@hotmail.com (Ygor Coelho) wrote:
>
><big snip>
>
>The beauty of the sound of a language is in the ear of the hearer.
Not always. It is oftentimes in the mouth of the speaker. Those
with poor hearing can miss the objective beauty of the sound. For
communication one needs a transmitter and a receiver. Beauty
is a thus transmissible entity. Failure to agree on this point is an
epistemological error.
>One's favorite language is the best.
>The discussions in this thread have been mostly on the order of "my X is
>the best (and better than your X)."
This is tautological.
>I don't see how this sort of discussion is productive or scientific -
>after all, this is a sci.* group.
One of the few remaining problems of philosophy is to set both
esthetics and ethics on a firm scientific basis, i.e. to assign metrics
to esthetic and ethical quanta such that they can be discussed
rationally, analyzed objectively, and taxed appropriately.
Of course, thereafter, only politics remains to be metricised.
This having been achieved, the world will end. Polls may
already be the epitome of this phenomenology.
>
>Henry "ni chauve ni chauvin" Polard || Chauve qui peut!
Menippos ho phalakros
"Ya peu de chauves qui parlent des langues aféminées."
M. Ranjit Mathews
> "M. Ranjit Mathews" <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote ...
> > Would you say that Portugese is, in any way, easier than Latin?
> > I find Italian the easiest Romance language.
>
> Thank you for sharing that information, it is very interesting for me :)
> basics but hard to start read and understand automatically. Italian is much
> easier than Latin because the declinations were substituted for prepositions
> just like portuguese.
For an Indian, especially one with some knowledge of Sanskrit, Latin
is much easier than Portugese. Consider the following three sentences.
In which language do you think it would be the easiest to tell them
apart? Latin, Italian or Portugese? In which of the three languages do
you think it would be the most difficult for a learner to tell the
sentences apart?
Oh fast car, move rapidly.
The fast car moved rapidly.
A fast car moves rapidly.
Portugese translation:
O carro rápido, move-se ràpidamente.
O carro rápido moveu-se ràpidamente.
Um carro rápido move-se ràpidamente.
Italian translation:
Il automobile veloce, si muove velocemente.
l'automobile veloce si è mosso velocemente.
Un automobile veloce si muove velocemente.
Henry Polard
"Menippos" <menip...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Henry Polard wrote in message ...
> >In article <b5748cbf.02120...@posting.google.com>,
> > ygor_...@hotmail.com (Ygor Coelho) wrote:
> >
> ><big snip>
> >
> >The beauty of the sound of a language is in the ear of the hearer.
>
> Not always. It is oftentimes in the mouth of the speaker. Those
> with poor hearing can miss the objective beauty of the sound.
You mean that you have objective ways of asessing beauty? Cool! where is
it written up?
> For
> communication one needs a transmitter and a receiver.
Of course.
> Beauty
> is a thus transmissible entity. Failure to agree on this point is an
> epistemological error.
I'd love to learn more about beauty being an entity. I don't understand
your reasoning, though - would you be so kind as to say more?
> >One's favorite language is the best.
> >The discussions in this thread have been mostly on the order of "my X is
> >the best (and better than your X)."
>
> This is tautological.
"One's favorite language is the best." is tautological, and I am
implying - perhaps not explicitly enough - that the tautological part is
the problem in this discussion - it is a defense of theses that are
tautologies for each individual, but are not necessarily universal. To
expand, people seem to be saying "X is more beautiful because X is more
beautiful" - the tautology for person A - with the implication that if
person B thinks that Y is best, personB is deficient/bad/nykulturny/etc.
However, if you can come up with orpoint to a truly objective evaluation
method for assessing beauty that is non-tautological, I shall cheerfully
withdraw my complaint about this discussion.
> >I don't see how this sort of discussion is productive or scientific -
> >after all, this is a sci.* group.
>
> One of the few remaining problems of philosophy is to set both
> esthetics and ethics on a firm scientific basis, i.e. to assign metrics
> to esthetic and ethical quanta such that they can be discussed
> rationally, analyzed objectively, and taxed appropriately.
Well, as you point out, that is a remaining problem, and therefore might
not even be solvable, so claiming that:
> Beauty
> is a thus transmissible entity. Failure to agree on this point is an
> epistemological error.
might be a tad premature.
> Of course, thereafter, only politics remains to be metricised.
> This having been achieved, the world will end. Polls may
> already be the epitome of this phenomenology.
Of course. Your claims of certainty are irrefutable. You're the one
who knows for certain. Yup.
I think that the "may" above might well be your lifeline.
In any case, you have written fine philosophy. and I am sure that there
is a newsgroup that it is appropriate for. I suspect that you would be
better received in this newsgroup once you've figured it out and
distilled it to a scientific basis.
Henry Polard || Syntax is better than poll tax.
Ygor Coelho
know why I have almost no doubt portuguese is really one or the
richest language(s) in the world. The portuguese is the newest romance
language, but it is the richest language of them. Why? Only a
explication can tell you why!
The romans conquered the Iberic Peninsule and there different
dialects of latin developed. One of them was the antecedent of the
portuguese. First, the language spoken in the area where nowadays it
is Portugal was the galician-portuguese. This language was very, but
very poor, only with about 5,000 words! Then, the muslims invaded the
Iberic Peninsule and the portuguese was subjugated by the arabic. In a
period of 600 years, the portuguese adopted about 1,500 words of
arabic. Besides, as Portugal and Spain are very relationed, several
spanish words became portugese words, too. Independent of the Muslim
Empire, Portugal became a rich and important country. The portuguese
language became the most important language in the world during the
centuries XIV and XV. The portuguese navegators brought to Portugal a
lot of words of the countries they have passed by. The trade with
Africa and Asia was intense this time. The portuguese language adopted
words in chinese, too: "chá", for example. Then, America was
"discovered" and Portugal conquered the area where today we find
Brazil. There, they met about 5,000,000 indians who spoke more than
1,700 different languages. The principal language, the tupi-guarani,
spoke in the coast, influenced very much the portuguese. When the
portugueses came to Brazil, they had to learn tupi-guarani, because
Brazil was a bilingual country where two principal languages was
spoken: portuguese and tupi-guarani. However, not only tupi-guarani
influenced the portuguese language. The words derived of indian
languages are about nature: sabiá, tamanduá, jararaca, jaboticaba,
jatobá, abacaxi, etc.. Brazil was a bilingual country until the XVIII
century. The millions of african slaves that went to Brazil brought
from Africa a lot of words that, in Brazil, was adopted by all
inhabitants, not only the slaves. Examples: bunda, candomblé, axé,
samba, etc.. But the african and indian words weren't the only ones
who has been adopted by the portuguese this time. The french influence
in Portugal and Brazil was enormous and the portuguese language
adopted thousands of french words. Probably, the french is the
european language who has most influenced the portuguese. In the XIX
century, the english appeared as the new "influence-language" in the
portuguese. Hundreds of english words were adopted. At this same time,
Brazil had received millions of immigrants, specially italians,
portugueses, spaniards, germans, ucranians, polishes and japaneses. I
don't know if you already know, but Brazil has the biggest japanese
population out of Japan, there are about 1,100,000 japanese and
descendent of them in Brazil. All these peoples have influenced the
portuguese language in Brazil. The immigrants, specially the italians,
spaniards and germans, have brought to Brazil thousands of words and
expressions. The funniest is ENCRENCA, derived from german, that comes
from the german ICH HABE EIN KRANKE (I have a disease). The german
prostituts, when they didn't want to have sexual relations with
someone, said that they was with a terrible disease. In german: Ich
habe ein kranke. The brazilians contracted it: encrenca. Since some
decades ago, the portuguese language has received a lot of words of
english. Some people say that the portuguese language is threatened by
this influence, but I don't think so. It's the evolution of the
language! Several words derived from english are not accepted by the
grammatics, but they are here in Brazil, in the mouth of the people.
Examples of new words derived from english: deletar, plugar, estresse,
resetar, glamour. Besides the influence of the languages, the
portuguese has evoluted because of the people who speak it, because
they created and create several derivatives words and invent many
others. I've related the history of the portuguese in Portugal and
Brazil, but notice that many others countries in Africa and Asia speak
portuguese. Imagine how many others words we can find in these
countries!
The portuguese has influenced many languages, from America to Asia.
The malaysian, for example, has many words derived from it. I only
remember SOLDADU, derived from portuguese SOLDADO.
Portuguese is very important, yes! If Brazil becomes a important and
rich country (I don't doubt it!), it will be one of the most important
languages in the world. Nowadays, portuguese is considered, as I read,
the seventh most important language in the world.
Ygor Coelho
french, I wrote in a wrong way! I don't want to humiliate the french
language. This is my third favourite language! The brazilian people
think the french is affeminated whe men are talking, not me. I don't
doubt portuguese can sound affeminated by foreigners, because the
portuguese pronunciation is a little similar with the french
pronunciation, isn't it? The french language, although it seems a poor
language, has a beautiful speech, as portuguese, italian and even
english. I'm not talking about the sounds by themselves, but the
pronunciatin of these sounds when they are relationed in a text. My
opinion is that these languages are the most beautiful in the world. I
may be wrong, because I don't know all languages of world! :)
I think the most beautiful languages are those that you always hear
and then you give your opinion. As I like opera and I hear very much
french, italian and german in the songs and as I study english, I'm
sure that my most preferred languages are portuguese, first, italian,
second, french, third, and english, fourth.
I'm sure the frenches think the french is the most beautiful. The
chineses think chinese the most beautiful. The russians, too! It's
ridiculous to discuss the most beautiful, but we can discuss the
sounds of the languages and discover why the portuguese is melodious.
It's fact: portuguese is one of the most melodious and lyric languages
in the world!
I didn't know that nasal sounds are affeminated. The incredible is
that I like more the nasal sounds than the other ones, specially in
women speaking! The fact is that a language that "fit" very well to
music is a language that has agradable sounds, isn't it? The french,
although it sounds strange to me, is great to music and its sounds are
realy better than the german sounds, for example. It's my opinion!
Hey, I think the world opinion isn't the opinion of many people. The
spanish sounds and words sounds terrible to me and many people agree
with it. So, can the spanish be beautiful and ugly? Definitely no. I
think the portuguese language seems spanish, but it sounds more lyric,
lower and more autoritative.
Lovecraftesque, you destroyed my child dream, hehehehehehehe :)
Logically I don't believe in Santa Claus, but a good dictionary and
the opinion of linguists might make me more sure of it. The history of
the portuguese language don't deny this fact! You must understand that
the portuguese language was the most opened language during many
centuries ago. While english, german and italian was just european
languages, the portuguese language ran the world because of the
portuguese trade and the navegation. Besides, Brazil was a point of
all peoples in the world: africans, indians, portugueses, spaniards,
germans, polishes, ucranians, jews, etc.. The portuguese language is
very dinamic, it adopts words fast and abandone others fast. Creating
words is common in portuguese everyday! I know the others languages
have these characteristics, too, but the portuguese had more time to
adopt words derived from all the sorts of languages.
Please, can someone tell me how many words are counted in the biggest
languages in the world?
Ygor Coelho
languages that have influenced the portuguese in its history.
Logically, many others languages also have influenced it :)
These are some words in portuguese derived from some languages that
have influenced very much the vocabulary of the portuguese language.
Maybe, it can show you how portuguese is really a eater of foreign
words! Only the brazilian portuguese has created and adopted in its
history (1500-) more than 120,000 words: 240 new words per year! In
may of 2001, I'm not sure of date, the NGB (Nomenclatura Gramatical
Brasileira), the institute that defines the vocabulary of portuguese,
adopted to the brazilian portuguese language about 6,000 new words. It
means, 6,000 words more in the portuguese lexic because of a
convention! The newest verbs, derived from english, are accepted as
portuguese therms: deletar, plugar, resetar, escanear, restartar,
etc..
French: abajur, agrafe, ateliê, avalancha, balancê, balé, batom, bege,
bibelô, dossiê, pivô, bidé, boate, boné, bulevar, buquê, bufê,
cachecol, cachê, camionete, cabaré, camuflar, carrossel, cancã, carnê,
capô, carapaça, carroceria, cassetete, chalé, champanhe, chance,
chantagem, chofer, chassi, chique, choque, chope, clichê, conhaque,
complô, coquete, cupê, creche, crepom, croquete, culote, deboche,
decolagem, detalhe, edredom, elite, filé, garçom, garagem, glacê,
guache, greve, groselha, guidom, quepe, quermesse, manchete, maçom,
manicure, enquete...
English: andebol, deletar, plugar, resetar, escanear, basquete,
beisebol, bife, biquíni, blefe, boxe, buldogue, cartum, checar,
cheque, chiclete, clipe, clube, craque, críquete, detectar, drinque,
faroeste, filme, flerte, flertar, futebol, gilete, gol, golfe, jipe,
juri, picape, nocaute, lorde, lanche, líder, lanchonete, magazine,
milorde, mídia, ponche, repórter, ringue, escore, sanduíche, tênis,
soçaite, xampu, esqui, suéter, suingue, tanque, time, teste, testar,
iogurte, zíper, folclore, turismo...
German: blocausse, encrenca, edelvais, gnaisse, landgrave, talvegue,
blitz, leitmotive...
Italian: alegreto, bersalher, cassino, confete, carcamano, gelosia,
gueto, nhoque, dileto, diletante, grupeto, largueto, lasanha, risoto,
madona, vendeta, paleta, pitoresco, pizicato, prima-dona, salsicha,
polenta, saltarelo, espaguete, terceto, terracota, bocha, charlatão,
chusma, espadachim, salsicha, bambochata, ágio, doge, arpejo,
bastardo...
Japanese: gueixa, haraquiri, samurai, haicai, quimono, iene...
Indian languages: jaboticaba, jararaca, sabiá, arara, açaí, oca,
igarapé, tamanduá, jatobá, curió, tuiuiú, jacaré...
African languages: bunda, moleque, axé, samba, candomblé, umbanda,
maracatu, afoxé, Iemanjá, muçum, caçula, xingar,
Arabic: alface, alcachofra, alpendre, açúcar, azeviche, azeche,
alperche, álgebras, algeroz, ginete, girafa, giz, açafate, açafrão,
açaimar, açúcar, açucena, cetim, acetinado, xadrez, oxalá, moçárabe,
muçulmano, ábaco, abexim, almoxarife, enxaqueca, enxoval...
Spanish: castanhola, apetrecho, cahucha, endecha, chorrilho, cincho,
mochila, puxa, gitano, lagartixa, xerez, perrexil, truxilho...
Ygor Coelho
> The fast car moved rapidly.
> A fast car moves rapidly.
>
> Portugese translation:
> O carro rápido, move-se ràpidamente.
> O carro rápido moveu-se ràpidamente.
> Um carro rápido move-se ràpidamente.
>
> Italian translation:
> Il automobile veloce, si muove velocemente.
> l'automobile veloce si è mosso velocemente.
> Un automobile veloce si muove velocemente.
This portuguese must be the ancient one! The "à" is used in portuguese
only for the crasis: a + a : à. Besides, the pronunciation is
/hapida'mëti], not /'hapidamëti/. The subject, according to the
portuguese grammar, cannot be separed of the predicative with commas,
only if there is a "aposto" between the words, but it isn't considered
a separation. The correct phrases are:
- O carro rápido move-se rapidamente.
- O carro rápido moveu-se rapidamente.
- Um carro rápido move-se rapidamente.
Ygor Coelho
I'm brazilian and as I read and hear european portuguese language, I'm
sure the language spoken in Brazil is a european language. Brazilians
have developed the portuguese language a lot, but brazilians and
portugueses can talk with no difficult! There are three principal
differences: the accent, some words that in Portugal are different and
in Brazil the forms CT and PT has almost disappeared. The order of the
pronoun is almost different, but it isn't at all. But this also
happens with the british and american english and the american spanish
and the spaniard spanish. Look a text in european portuguese and
brazilian portuguese:
- Que estás a fazer aqui?
- Pegarei em breve um comboio.
- Por que?
- Os factos actuais deixam-me sem escolhas.
- Qual é o problema? É porque seu irmão gémeo está doente?
- É, mas isso não é tudo. Podes-me ajudar?
- O que está fazendo aqui?
- Vou pegar um trem em breve.
- Por que?
- Os fatos atuais me deixam sem escolhas.
- Qual é o problema? É porque seu irmão gêmeo está doente?
- É, mas isso não é tudo. Você pode me ajudar?
Obviously, it is the same language with different uses.
M. Ranjit Mathews
>>Oh fast car, move rapidly.
>>The fast car moved rapidly.
>>A fast car moves rapidly.
>>
>>Portugese translation:
>>Italian translation:
>>Il automobile veloce, si muove velocemente.
>>l'automobile veloce si è mosso velocemente.
>>Un automobile veloce si muove velocemente.
>
> This portuguese must be the ancient one! The "à" is used in portuguese
> only for the crasis: a + a : à. Besides, the pronunciation is
> /hapida'mëti], not /'hapidamëti/. The subject, according to the
> portuguese grammar, cannot be separed of the predicative with commas,
> only if there is a "aposto" between the words, but it isn't considered
> a separation. The correct phrases are:
> - O carro rápido move-se rapidamente.
> - O carro rápido moveu-se rapidamente.
> - Um carro rápido move-se rapidamente.
Thank you. My point is that Portugese is too ambiguous to be easy. That
is, it is inordinately difficult for a foreigner to listen to spoken
Portugese and understand precisely what is being said. This is because
sentences with different (examples above) meanings are pronounced (and
often intoned) very similarly and unless one is well trained to listen
for the minute difference, one is lost. Latin sentences are easy to tell
apart. Italian is not as easy, but it is easier to tell Italian
sentences apart than Portugese sentences.
Manuel Silva
mistaken in the first sentence: "Oh fast car, move rapidly." this is an
Imperative sentence with an enfatic particle "Oh" right? so if it is
imperative it should be translated:
Ó carro rápido move-te rapidamente.
This way the sentences should be easier to understand.
Ó carro rápido move-te rapidamente.
> - O carro rápido moveu-se rapidamente.
> - Um carro rápido move-se rapidamente.
I am afraid that this statement does not make much sense, the problem is
that for non-native speakers, they can't understand the phonemes, so they
can't "hear" diferent sentences...
If they train their "ears" they could easily undestand precisely what is
being said.
Take this for a example, in Arabic the word for orange is: "bortugal", but
this word could be pronounced by a portuguese speaker "portugal" or
"bortugal", and the arabic listener would not make any diference betwen the
two words.
The conclusion is obvious, there are no ambiguous languages, they are only
ambiguous for the listeners that are not prepared to hear the phonemes of
that language.
There is a Little story in Madarin that shows this in a very scientific way,
the whole text is based on the [sh] sounds, for a person like me or maybe
you, we canot tell the difference in almost every word, but for a chinese
listener it's obvious that they are diferent words in the story. (Im sorry
but i dont have a text with this story, but maybe some chinese reader will
come up with that)
Latin sentences are easy to tell
apart. Italian is not as easy, but it is easier to tell Italian
sentences apart than Portugese sentences.
The fact that one language is easier to learn resides in the fact of their
complexity at syntax and phonetics level, I still have not found a language
that is really hard to learn!
I have not tried Russian yet :=)
I think comparisons between the dificulty level of a language are a little
absurd, but a discussion based on the complexity of the language is much
more scientific, and does not bring nationalisms and passionate reactions
about the native languages..
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3DF6D72C...@yahoo.com...
Manuel Silva
"Henry Polard" <hpo...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:hpolard-0419A5...@nntp.mindspring.com...
> In article <at65s3$10gi44$1...@ID-60297.news.dfncis.de>,
> "Menippos" <menip...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Henry Polard wrote in message ...
> > >In article <b5748cbf.02120...@posting.google.com>,
> > > ygor_...@hotmail.com (Ygor Coelho) wrote:
> > >
> > ><big snip>
> > >
> implying - perhaps not explicitly enough - that the tautological part is
> the problem in this discussion - it is a defense of theses that are
> tautologies for each individual, but are not necessarily universal. To
> expand, people seem to be saying "X is more beautiful because X is more
> beautiful" - the tautology for person A - with the implication that if
> person B thinks that Y is best, personB is deficient/bad/nykulturny/etc.
>
I must agree with Henry Polard, in Portuguese we have a fine statement that
resumes the paragraph above:
"Gostos não se discutem"
(As this is a language group i will not translate it.. I am sure almost
every of you linguists can translate this sentence easily...)
But i think that a discussion based on examining the complexity and
characteristics of a language or comparisons of languages are of interest to
this newsgroup.
Peter T. Daniels
> I must agree with Henry Polard, in Portuguese we have a fine statement that
> resumes the paragraph above:
> "Gostos não se discutem"
> (As this is a language group i will not translate it.. I am sure almost
> every of you linguists can translate this sentence easily...)
The Latin original is much more familiar: De gustibus non disputandum.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Lovecraftesque
> First, the language spoken in the area where nowadays it is
> Portugal was the galician-portuguese. This language was very, but very
> poor, only with about 5,000 words!
I stil think that there is little more than
jingoism to your postings, and certainly not much in
the way of scientific precision. The paragraph above
is just an example: giving an estimate of the number
of words (itself a fuzzy concept) available in a language
over a thousand years old, of which few (if any) written
records remain, is a pure speculation.
You are obviously very enthusiastic about the
Portuguese language. Fair enough. That clearly prevents
you from issuing any dispassionate, objective statements
about this language, which renders your assertions
scientifically untrustworthy.
More bluntly: your fervent belief that Portuguese
is at that pinnacle of human languages doesn't make it
so.
Yusuf B Gursey
: I think you are both missing a very important point here, if i am not
: mistaken in the first sentence: "Oh fast car, move rapidly." this is an
: Imperative sentence with an enfatic particle "Oh" right? so if it is
: imperative it should be translated:
: Ó carro rápido move-te rapidamente.
: This way the sentences should be easier to understand.
: Ó carro rápido move-te rapidamente.
:> - O carro rápido moveu-se rapidamente.
:> - Um carro rápido move-se rapidamente.
: I am afraid that this statement does not make much sense, the problem is
: that for non-native speakers, they can't understand the phonemes, so they
: can't "hear" diferent sentences...
: If they train their "ears" they could easily undestand precisely what is
: being said.
: Take this for a example, in Arabic the word for orange is: "bortugal", but
: this word could be pronounced by a portuguese speaker "portugal" or
: "bortugal", and the arabic listener would not make any diference betwen the
: two words.
(more likely the arabic listener would find the first misspronounced)
in modern standard arabic al-burtu*gh*a:l is the country (Portugal)
burtuqa:l (variant: burtuqa:n) is "orange" (coll.). here /q/ represents
the n. african (among others) colloquial pronounciation as [g] (stop).
(rather: many european listeners of arabic would fail to distinguish
between al-burtu*gh*a:l for the country and al-burtuqa:l pronounced
al-burtuga:l for "the orange")
two different renditions of a sound foreign to standard arabic have been
chosen to make a differentiation of words otherwise of the same origin.
since the voiced pronounciation of /q/ is not a prestige one (in spite of
its antiquity), it was not chosen in the representation of a name of a
country.
speakers of other dialects of arabic would understand [burtuqa:l] for
"orange", presumabley brought by the n. african traders.
(BTW turkish has Portekiz for the country and portakal for "orange")
"orange" itself is from arabic (ultimately persian) na:ranj , in current
standards "bitter orange".
: The conclusion is obvious, there are no ambiguous languages, they are only
M. Ranjit Mathews
> mistaken in the first sentence: "Oh fast car, move rapidly." this is an
> Imperative sentence with an enfatic particle "Oh" right? so if it is
> imperative it should be translated:
>
> Ó carro rápido move-te rapidamente.
>
> This way the sentences should be easier to understand.
>
> > - O carro rápido moveu-se rapidamente.
> > - Um carro rápido move-se rapidamente.
>
> I am afraid that this statement does not make much sense, the problem is
> that for non-native speakers, they can't understand the phonemes, so they
> can't "hear" diferent sentences...
> If they train their "ears" they could easily undestand precisely what is
> being said.
Correct. The observation is that it is harder for a foreigner to train
his ears to discern differences between sentences (especially when
spoken) in some languages than in other languages. I find Portugese
one of the harder languages in this respect. The differences between
French, Latin, and English sentences is much easier for a foreigner to
train himself to discern. Of the major modern Romance languages with
significant similarity to Portugese, Italian seems the easiest.
bzza
one can trade information, very useful and interesting with experts like you
seem to be and also students like me.
In respect to the etymology of the word "al-burtuqa:l" - "orange" my
phonology teacher says it is because the Portuguese brought the orange seeds
from China, and the oranges are very used in every Mediterranean country,
both Africa and Europe as you probably known already... I am not sure this
is true but I think it is a good possibility. In Greek orange its said in a
similar way I think...
?????????
something like: Portokáli
in fact "orange juice" is very funny it is:"????? ??????????? " and in
Portuguese : " sumo de laranja"
the literal Greek translation is : "juice of Portugal" in the genitive case.
"Yusuf B Gursey" <y...@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote in message
news:H6z3p...@world.std.com...
Yusuf B Gursey
: Thank you for all that information. I think this newsgroup very good because
: one can trade information, very useful and interesting with experts like you
just knowledgeable in certain areas.
: seem to be and also students like me.
: In respect to the etymology of the word "al-burtuqa:l" - "orange" my
one needn't use the definite article when citing an arabic common noun,
just in certain proper nouns that happen to have it (as in the name of the
country of Portugal in arabic).
: phonology teacher says it is because the Portuguese brought the orange seeds
probably. they controlled much trade.
: from China, and the oranges are very used in every Mediterranean country,
: both Africa and Europe as you probably known already... I am not sure this
: is true but I think it is a good possibility. In Greek orange its said in a
: similar way I think...
: ?????????
: something like: Portokáli
yes. here are some more musings on this word form previous posts:
==================
From: Ant/onio (a...@netc.pt)
Subject: Re: What Happened to the Anatolian languages?
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Date: 2002-01-10 17:23:55 PST
Mark Rosenfelder wrote:
> >I'm curious as to the Naranja->Orange mutation, if that's how the word
> >came about. Any relationship to Orange, France, or the House of Orange?
>
> No; the latter goes back to Latin Auausio. (The coincidence provided the
> House of Orange with a nice icon, however.)
>
> The word 'orange' can be traced back to Sanskrit narang (though the fruit
> seems to have originated even farther east, in southern China). The
> immediate
> source for the West was the Arabic na:ranj, reflected pretty closely in
> Spanish. The French mistook une narange for une orange ;
Portuguese laranja [l@r'@~Z@].
> similarly in
> Italian. (This sort of misanalysis is fairly common; another example i
s
> apron, from Middle French naperon.)
illa hedera >> l'ierre >> lierre ('ivy').
=================
: in fact "orange juice" is very funny it is:"????? ??????????? " and in
:>
Ygor Coelho
It isn´t a speculation of 1,000 years ago, but of 800 years ago, when
the portuguese became really a language and when the portuguese
grammar first appeared. I know it´s a speculation, but isn´t the world
full of it? If we are counting words, we are just making a
speculation, because on the whole the regional words and expressions
are forgotten.
I´m not enthusiastic about the portuguese. I created a topic about the
portuguese language, so I can´t talk about another thing. I´m just
telling the truth and nobody can deny it: portuguese is really a rich
language, a important language, and it is melodious. If it is
beautiful, I think it´s just opinion.
I think each one have a specific opinion: many people doesn´t like
nasal sounds, I like them!
After some searches, I guess I have a conclusion. Portuguese isn´t the
richest language in vocabulary. It is the second richest language,
because the english has more words than it. I think english, however,
is poor of meaning when compared with portuguese. Portuguese has less
words than english but it is the richest language in meanings. Let me
explain... The english is the richest language specially because it is
derived from two groups of languages: the germanic and the latin.
Notice that there are in english two words with the same meaning from
different origins: FREEDOM (germanic) and LIBERTY (latin). Instead of
it, in portuguese the words usually has only a origin. On the whole,
the words have different meanings. It isn´t common a lot of words with
the same meaning. It´s my conclusion.
I think you can take only a opinion! Can´t you think that portuguese,
english and chinese are all rich and important?
Ygor Coelho
and it has a lot of ways to speak a phrase. Besides, it comes from
latin. I don´t speak latin but I think it isn´t very easy, because
spanish, french and portuguese aren´t easy...
Manuel Silva, you are right. The translation was wrong! We have two
option with the imperative, using TU or VOCÊ, no? Notice that we must
put a comma because Ó CARRO RÁPIDO is a vocative. So:
- Ó carro rápido, move-te rapidamente.
- Ó carro rápido, mova-se rapidamente.
Portuguese is more easier to understand than english. Since english is
a monossilabic language, there are words very similar. Examples: Hat,
Hot, Hit, Hut. Besides, the americans speak faster than the brazilians
or portugueses. Many words are pronounced in the same way: WRITE and
RIGHT, for example. It´s much more difficult!
Lovecraftesque
> It isn´t a speculation of 1,000 years ago, but of 800 years ago, when
> the portuguese became really a language and when the portuguese grammar
> first appeared. I know it´s a speculation, but isn´t the world full of
> it?
Sure. Any conclusions based on speculations are,
at best, suspect.
> I´m not enthusiastic about the portuguese.
You don't say! Need I quote you on your extravagant
assertions on its purported wonders?
> I´m just telling the truth
You are just telling your opinions, which may, or may not,
reflect an objective truth.
> and nobody can deny it: portuguese is really a rich language, a
> important language, and it is melodious.
Sure we can:
1) Richness: I guess there are many ways to define this, but
I can think of, say, half a dozen other languages that surpass it,
by just about any reasonable definition thereof.
2) Important: It is indeed but, again, there are a few languages
that eclipse it. Why, I think it is not even one the working languages
in the United Nations.
3) Melodiousness: This is such a subjective one that discussing
it is pointless.
> If it is beautiful, I think it´s just opinion.
Fine. Just remember that opinions and objective truths are
conceptually two different things.
> It [Portuguese] is the second richest language, because the english has
> more words than it.
Hmm... Counting words is tricky. Depending on one's criteria,
it is possible to come up with significant divergent assessmnents.
Anyway, when talking about the richness of a language I prefer
to focus on the literary output associated with it, rather than on word
count. Again, although Portuguese is no pushover in this area, there
are a few languages that almost certainly make it bite the dust.
> I think you can take only a opinion!
That's right. Only an opinion, not a fact.
> Can´t you think that portuguese,
> english and chinese are all rich and important?
Well, I can think that English, Chinese, Spanish, French,
Russian, Arabic and Hindi are probably richer, and no doubt much
more important; unless one wishes to live in Brazil, one would
be far better off learning any of those languages - and even in
Brazil one can probably get by with Spanish.
My conclusion: Is Portuguese a major language? Yes. Is it the
linguistic, historical wonder that you want to believe it is? No.
bzza
"Lovecraftesque" <Lovecra...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2002.12.12.16...@yahoo.com...
Trying to put languages in scales sounds pretty absurd...
Methaphor: The water of the Pacific ocean is more beautiful than the water
in the Atlantic...
Ygor Coelho
It's just opinion and some speculations, but it has truth, too. The
story of the portuguese has showed that this language is rich, because
it was the first european language that become to be spoken overseas:
during several centuries the portuguese was the language used by the
chineses, japaneses, indonesians and other asian people to speak with
european. The african slaves represented 40% of the population in
Brazil during the colonization. Thus, many african words come into the
language. Nobody can say that portuguese isn't a rich language. You
are right: there are a lot of criteria to definite a language as rich
or not. But in this case we are talking about words and idiomatic
expressions. The literature of the portuguese language is enormous.
The brazilian writer Machado de Assis was considered by the New York
Times the best american writer. Others important writers: Camões, Eça
de Queirós, Jorge Amado, Moacyr Scliar, Clarice Lispector, Cecília
Meireles, José Saramago, Lígia Fagundes Telles, José de Alencar, etc..
It's fun: I'm speculating when I say that portuguese is a rich and
melodious language but nobody is speculating when say that portuguese
is effeminated. I was wrong when I said french is effeminated, because
I noticed that it has no sense!
Nobody will understand what someone is speaking if he/she speaks
spanish in Brazil. Portuguese and spanish are similar, but they are
different languages with many differences. It's impossible to a
brazilian to communicate really well with a mexican or a argentinian
and vice-versa.
Ygor Coelho
I feel sorry, but spanish isn't richer than portuguese. Spanish is
considered a poor language when compared with english or portuguese. A
really good portuguese dictionary contains 400,000 words. The spanish
one contains about 100,000. I don't know if there are more words that
was not counted, but the dictionary is a good way to find words!
Henry Polard
ygor_...@hotmail.com (Ygor Coelho) wrote:
My language is bigger than your language, nayh nyah!
Now, now, children!
-- Henry Polard || What are we overcompensating for here?
M. Ranjit Mathews
> In article <b5748cbf.0212...@posting.google.com>,
> ygor_...@hotmail.com (Ygor Coelho) wrote:
>
>>Lovecraftesque,
>>I feel sorry, but spanish isn't richer than portuguese. Spanish is
>>considered a poor language when compared with english or portuguese. A
>>really good portuguese dictionary contains 400,000 words. The spanish
>>one contains about 100,000.
> My language is bigger than your language, nayh nyah!
Can richness be defined primarily in terms of a lexicon? Malayalam has
much of the vocabulary of Old Tamil, retaining even Old Tamil words that
are extinct in spoken Tamil, has transformations defined for converting
any Sanskrit word to a Malayalam word and potentially includes the whole
English dictionary because English words can be borrowed too in an ad
hoc fashion. Now that I've shown that Malayalam as many words than
English and Portugese together, might I have satisfied Ygor that
Malayalam is as rich as Portugese and English put together?
Manuel Silva
Eu comprendo o seu entusiasmo pela língua portuguesa, pois também gosto
muito da minha língua materna :=)
A excêlencia do Português como língua do mundo é enorme, a nossa literatura
Lusofona é das mais ricas de todo o mundo. Portugal é com o Inglês e o
Chinês uma das línguas mais faladas em todo o mundo...
Mas estes factos são do conheçimento de qualquer linguista, digno desse
nome, por isso na minha humilde opinião axo um desperdicio de tempo estar a
responder a essas pessoas que tentam a todo o custo inferiorizar o
português, por motivos provavelmente pessoais...
E também não vale a pena na minha humilde opinião contar-mos palavras de uma
língua para provar a sua importância, é como contarmos os grãos de areia
numa estátua de areia, e dizer-mos que a estátua x é mais bonita do que a
estátua y por ter mais grãos de areia...
É bom saber que existêm lusófonos apaixonados....
Um abraço
Manuel Silva
"Ygor Coelho" <ygor_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b5748cbf.0212...@posting.google.com...
H.M. Hubey
Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
bzza <0m.fial...@netcabo.pt> wrote: : Thank you for all that information. I think this newsgroup very good because : one can trade information, very useful and interesting with experts like you just knowledgeable in certain areas. : seem to be and also students like me. : In respect to the etymology of the word "al-burtuqa:l" - "orange" my one needn't use the definite article when citing an arabic common noun, just in certain proper nouns that happen to have it (as in the name of the country of Portugal in arabic). : phonology teacher says it is because the Portuguese brought the orange seeds probably. they controlled much trade. : from China, and the oranges are very used in every Mediterranean country, : both Africa and Europe as you probably known already... I am not sure this : is true but I think it is a good possibility. In Greek orange its said in a : similar way I think... : ????????? : something like: Portok?li yes. here are some more musings on this word form previous posts: ================== From: Ant/onio (a...@netc.pt) Subject: Re: What Happened to the Anatolian languages? Newsgroups: sci.lang Date: 2002-01-10 17:23:55 PST Mark Rosenfelder wrote:
Ygor Coelho
Congratulations! I already said english is the richest language in the
world and I don't doubt it. I won't discuss what is the richest
language anymore because, as the linguists I've asked for opinions, it
has no sense. Discussing about the richness of the languages will
always be a speculation and it's uninteresting to our minds, because
the richness doesn't make a language.
Ranjit,
It's interesting. This language must be very rich! Putting english and
portuguese together we have more than 1,000,000 words. Ah, I almost
forgot: it's estimated that portuguese, when counting all names of
plants, animals and other words that weren't counted still, there are
more than 1,000,000, too. Alias, I think all major languages can have
1,000,000 words counting everything.
Ygor Coelho
Melhor ainda é saber que nós, tanto brasileiros como portugueses,
podemos estar tão unidos por esse belo idioma que nós temos!
Eu enviei um e-mail para dois lingüistas brasileiros que eu conheço.
Sabe o que me disseram? Não adianta falar de riqueza de idiomas, pois
é questão inferior, não faz uma língua melhor ou pior e, além do mais,
não possui um conceito definido. Depois desses conselhos, eu me
toquei: não vou mais falar sobre riqueza de idiomas. Afinal, o que
importa não é a opinião dos lingüistas, mas sim a dos 220 milhões de
lusófonos felizes com seu próprio idioma. Se o português fosse falado
por pouquíssimas pessoas e fosse uma língua sem qualquer importância,
ainda o falaria, não só por ser minha língua materna, mas também
porque não vi até hoje idioma tão suave de se ouvir :)
Sua comparação foi excelente! Então, se eles quiserem, que contem as
pedrinhas do Palácio de Versalhes e comparem com um castelo de areia,
já que gostam de enchimento!
Eu acho que alguns lingüistas aqui devem ter tido sérios problemas com
a língua portuguesa para não estarem dispostos a reconhecer muitas das
qualidades que o português tem.
Você disse que é bom saber que existem lusófonos apaixonados. Só posso
dizer uma coisa: idem!
Um abraço,
Ygor
H.M. Hubey
the statement that Turkish has about 200,000,000,000 "words".
M. Ranjit Mathews
> The discussion on ":richest" language is puerile.
That's what I was trying to illustrate. i hope I succeeded.
> See Jorge Hankamer for
> the statement that Turkish has about 200,000,000,000 "words".
Ha ha. I'm sure he has a rationale that will convince Ygor.
Javier BF
I think everybody here would be pleased if you both
were so kind to stop parading your puerile linguistic
chauvinism. I remind you there's intelligent life at
the other side of the line.
Thank you a lot in advance.
Ygor Coelho
go to the other side of the line. It seems intelligent and a little
idiot! Thanks for the invite.
Javier BF
> go to the other side of the line. It seems intelligent and a little
> idiot! Thanks for the invite.
You fool.
Ygor Coelho
Javier BF
but seem to be a child actually.
Am I wrong?
Lee Sau Dan
Ygor> Lee Sau Dan, You must be kidding!
Why do you think so?
Ygor> Why don´t you write a topic about chinese, japanese, korean
Ygor> or vietnamese?
Because I'm not that stupid to say a certain language is _the most_
beautiful of all just because I see a few "beautiful" aspects of it.
Every living language has its beautiful and ugly parts.
Ygor> I´m not making a comparison with these languages. I don´t
Ygor> want, neither. For me, it has no sense to make comparisons
Ygor> among languages! First, I want to say that in the world,
Ygor> what people mind is the quantity of people who speak the
Ygor> language and its importance to this world.
Mandarin Chinese wins in this case.
Ygor> Because of this, I think portuguese might be more learned in
Ygor> the world as well as the chinease might, too.
That depends on *which* Chinese you have in mind, and what you mean by
"learning". Modern _Standard_ SPOKEN Chinese (a.k.a. Putonghua) is an
artificial language that most Chinese need to learn, to a certain
extent. Pekingese people need the least effort to learn it. People
speaking Cantonese, Hokkien, Taiwanese, etc. have to learn it like a
foreign language. That Cantonese, Hokkien, and Putonghua are mutually
UNintelligible says it all. These are more different than Portugese
is from French and Spanish.
Ygor> You seems radical making these comparisons, because
Ygor> portuguese and chinese are totally different!
Heard of Macanese, a Macao-born pidgin which is a mixture of Cantonese
and (Old/Middle) Portugese?
Ygor> Notice, for example, that I said the portuguese contributed
Ygor> with many words to the evolution of several languages, I
Ygor> didn´t say it was the most important in the evolution of the
Ygor> languages. The portuguese language is the richest language
Ygor> in the world.
Then, give evidence to show me that it is richer than Chinese.
Ygor> It isn´t because it is old, as chinese. The portuguese
Ygor> speakers by themself create lots of words, because the
Ygor> portuguese is very dinamic. The derivation of words is done
Ygor> all the times!
What makes you think this is not the case for all other languages?
Ygor> Besides, the portuguese has taken a lot of words from
Ygor> another languages.
Not as extensively as Japanese, in which few words are of Japanese
origin.
Ygor> The influence of arabic, english, spanish, french in
Ygor> different periods of its history contributed with thousands
Ygor> of words.
Just thousands? Check out Japanese!
Ygor> If we count only the arabic words, we will find more than
Ygor> 1.500 words. From french, I don´t know how many words we
Ygor> have bringed to our language, but the influence can be
Ygor> easily noticed!
Are those word really from French? I think most of those you have in
mind are just cognates. They are descended from a common source --
Latin.
Ygor> I´m not sure the portuguese is the richest, but I´ve read in
Ygor> texts it is true and I think so.
I don't think so.
Ygor> The portuguese richest dictionary has 300.000 words,
It depends on how you count. How many words are there in the richest
English dictionary? I don't have the number for Chinese, though, as I
don't think such a count would be meaningful, given so many widely
different ways of counting what "one word" is.
Ygor> but there are many thousand other words. In the dictionary,
Ygor> for example, there isn´t the common word AVEXAR and AVEXADO.
That happens to all SPOKEN languages. In which English dictionary can
you find the word "distro", which appears frequently on Usenet? And
"combo"?
Ygor> I´ve never heard the vietnamese.
Ignorance is no defense.
Ygor> So, I can´t say anything! Good! If the portuguese grammar
Ygor> isn´t as difficult as the russian one, I´m happy because of
Ygor> it! I think the cantonese an interesting language, but I´ve
Ygor> never heard it. :)
Learn before you make your rebuttals. Go to the Portugal -- where
Portugese IS spoken -- and don't be surprised to find European-looking
native speakers of Cantonese (migrated from Macao) there.
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Lee Sau Dan
Ygor> Let me explain the history of the portuguese. Such you will
Ygor> be able to know why I have almost no doubt portuguese is
Ygor> really one or the richest language(s) in the world. The
Ygor> portuguese is the newest romance language, but it is the
Ygor> richest language of them. Why? Only a explication can tell
Ygor> you why!
Have you studied (and hence compared) the history of other languages?
If not, then how can you be so sure Portugese is as unique as you
assume it to be?
Ygor> The romans conquered the Iberic Peninsule and there
Ygor> different dialects of latin developed. One of them was the
Ygor> antecedent of the portuguese.
Latin is relatively new, when compared to Chinese (descended from
Middle Chinese and formerly Old Chinese), Hindi (descended from
Sanskrit) and Farsi (descended from Persian). All of these languages
have a much longer history than, unfortunately, your beloved
Portugese.
Ygor> Besides, as Portugal and Spain are very relationed, several
Ygor> spanish words became portugese words, too. Independent of
Ygor> the Muslim Empire, Portugal became a rich and important
Ygor> country. The portuguese language became the most important
Ygor> language in the world during the centuries XIV and XV.
The world? I think you're just refering to a small corner, and you
treat it as "the world". A self-centric view.
Do you know which city in the world had a population of over a million
during that period? And in which country was this city? What
language is spoken there?
Ygor> The portuguese language adopted words in chinese, too:
Ygor> "chá", for example.
I think the Japanese did so at least millenium before you did. They
still call it "chya", which is close to the pronunciation of Middle
Chinese.
Ygor> In the XIX century, the english appeared as the new
Ygor> "influence-language" in the portuguese. Hundreds of english
Ygor> words were adopted.
Just hundreds!? Hahahahaha....
You MUST have a look at Japanese then. BTW, there is a very large
Japanese population in Brazil. Why don't you go around and ask an
ethnic Japanese how many English words there are in *modern
colloquial* Japanese. Don't forget to ask them (esp. the literate
ones) what "Kanji"s are, and how many words in Japanese are from
Chinese. Also ask them how many words in Japanese are "wago". It's
left as an exercise for you to discover what "wago" means in Japanese.
Ygor> In german: Ich habe ein kranke.
That's wrong.
Ygor> Portuguese is very important, yes! If Brazil becomes a
Ygor> important and rich country (I don't doubt it!),
If China becomes an important (it is, already) and rich country (it will
be soon!), ...
Ygor> it will be one of the most important languages in the
Ygor> world.
Chinese will also become an important language. Definitely more
important than Portugese, if not more than English.
Ygor> Nowadays, portuguese is considered, as I read, the seventh
Ygor> most important language in the world.
It depends on how you define and measure "importance".
Lee Sau Dan
Menippos> But it does sound like Mandarin has wiped out even more
Menippos> indigenous languages than English+Spanish+Portuguese.
Menippos> Let me know because I don't want my intended course in
Menippos> classical Tibetan to go for naught.
The Tibetans are still speaking Tibetan. I've been to Tibet to
confirm this.
>> How much more melodious is it when compared to tone-rich
>> languages, such as Vietnamese?
Menippos> Tone languages are not melodious. They are in fact
Menippos> quite cacophonous. No civilization speaking a tone
Menippos> language has ever developed a world-class musical
Menippos> repertoire.
It depends on what you consider "world-class". There is also
"world-class" Chinese music concerts. That you aren't aware of it or
don't feel interested in it (because of your cultural background)
doesn't mean it is non-existent.
Ygor> And you, what do you think about portuguese?
>> What do you think about Cantonese, then?
Menippos> I hear Cantonese a lot. I think Mandarin sounds a lot
Menippos> better. Even Wu sounds better than Cantonese. "The
Menippos> fewer tones the better".
This is a highly subjective comment. To me, tone languages WITHOUT
NASAL SOUNDS are the most melodic. The nasal sounds make a language
sound TOO soft, so soft that I wouldn't be convinced by an argument
spoken in French (for instance).
Menippos> In fact, it is just possible that had the Chinese
Menippos> adopted an alphabet as proposed by Portuguese Jesuits,
Menippos> they might have succeeded in getting to the moon first.
Now, tell me who invented the gunpowder and fireworks first. And who
invented silk? And the umbrella? Which culture had city-planning
(and hence regularly grid-structured streets) since millenia ago?
Menippos> Instead they reverted to isolation and stagnation. This
Menippos> is not to say that the Chinese do not have a world-class
Menippos> cuisine, a distinction they share with the French,
Menippos> another inward-looking and stagnant society.
Persuade the Japanese to adopt your alphabet first.
Lee Sau Dan
Ygor> Only the brazilian portuguese has created and adopted in its
Ygor> history (1500-) more than 120,000 words: 240 new words per
Ygor> year!
Unless you can quote the corresponding figures for Japanese, I'm not
convinced by your argument.
Ygor> French: abajur, agrafe, ateliê, avalancha, balancê, balé,
Ygor> ...
French and Portugese are close cousins. They're both descendants of
Latin, and many words are simply co-inherited, rather than being
loaned from one into another.
Lovecraftesque
> Lovecraftesque,
> I feel sorry, but spanish isn't richer than portuguese. Spanish is
> considered a poor language when compared with english or portuguese.
By whom? By you? By resorting to a simple word count? Frankly,
your whole contention is just jingoistic and baseless. And, no matter
what you think, Portuguese is clearly eclipsed in importance by the
languages I mentioned in previous postings.
julien daux
>
> Ygor> French: abajur, agrafe, ateliê, avalancha, balancê, balé,
> Ygor> ...
>
> French and Portugese are close cousins. They're both descendants of
> Latin, and many words are simply co-inherited, rather than being
> loaned from one into another.
>
>
In those cases, the words are --most likely-- actually from French origin.
If you consider words like "imagination / imaginação" (I've invented the protuguese
one....), sure you can't say what comes from what. That's because those words aren't
popular derived forms of the language but some post-reintroduced words from latin.
But in the case of "abajur" for example, there's no point to argue. It comes from
"abat-jour". "abat" is from "abattre", the vanishing of the phonems "t" and "r"
being a caracteristic French feature, and "jour" is the French word for "diurn-".
(which gave "giorno" in It. e.g.).
So no need to systematically attack ygor's assertions.
--
Julien
opidds 1 2 12h e
fir 2 16 a -
julien daux
> >
>
> It depends on what you consider "world-class". There is also
> "world-class" Chinese music concerts. That you aren't aware of it or
> don't feel interested in it (because of your cultural background)
> doesn't mean it is non-existent.
>
That means that in China, one learns Mozart's or Chopin's composition, but that
neither in Austria nor in Poland one learns Chinese musique.
>
>
> This is a highly subjective comment. To me, tone languages WITHOUT
> NASAL SOUNDS are the most melodic. The nasal sounds make a language
> sound TOO soft, so soft that I wouldn't be convinced by an argument
> spoken in French (for instance).
>
But Mandarin HAS nasals ! Japanese also has ! Spanish vowels are all nasal ones
and the less said about American English the better !...
Lee Sau Dan
julien> Lee Sau Dan a écrit :
>> It depends on what you consider "world-class". There is also
>> "world-class" Chinese music concerts. That you aren't aware of
>> it or don't feel interested in it (because of your cultural
>> background) doesn't mean it is non-existent.
julien> That means that in China, one learns Mozart's or Chopin's
julien> composition,
That means we have knowledge of both Chinese and European culture and
history.
julien> but that neither in Austria nor in Poland one learns
julien> Chinese musique.
Because the Europeans, despite advanced transportation and
communication technologies, still know little about Chinese languages,
Chinese culture and Chinese history. i.e. IGNORANT.
>> This is a highly subjective comment. To me, tone languages
>> WITHOUT NASAL SOUNDS are the most melodic. The nasal sounds
>> make a language sound TOO soft, so soft that I wouldn't be
>> convinced by an argument spoken in French (for instance).
julien> But Mandarin HAS nasals !
No. The standard one doesn't. I mean nasalized VOWELS.
julien> Japanese also has !
No, it doesn't have nasalized vowels.
julien> Spanish vowels are all nasal ones
When?
julien> and the less said about American English the better !...
I find American pronunciations terrible.
julien daux
>
> Because the Europeans, despite advanced transportation and
> communication technologies, still know little about Chinese languages,
> Chinese culture and Chinese history. i.e. IGNORANT.
>
Ok, so : european knowing little about Chinese culture and so on => China has no
world-class culture, music and so on.
>
>
> julien> But Mandarin HAS nasals !
>
> No. The standard one doesn't. I mean nasalized VOWELS.
>
yes vowels. Every (pin yin) -ng terminaison implicates a nasalisation of the vowel
juste before, and I know a Chinese that pronounces every -n and -ng terminaison as a
nasalization of the preceding vowel without any track of [n] or [N] at the end of
the syllable. Typically, "fan" is pronounced as French "fin". (those nasals vowels
are almost pure ones)
>
> julien> Japanese also has !
>
> No, it doesn't have nasalized vowels.
>
Yes it has !
>
> julien> Spanish vowels are all nasal ones
>
> When?
>
all day long !
>
> julien> and the less said about American English the better !...
>
> I find American pronunciations terrible.
>
PErhaps but it IS nasalized !!
>
>
> ---
julien daux
I didn't have much time to expand my views. Here they are.
> >
> > julien> Japanese also has !
> >
> > No, it doesn't have nasalized vowels.
> >
>
> Yes it has !
>
the "n"-mora of japanese always implies a nasalization of the preceding vowel.
In final position or in some frontier cases, that "n" is reduced to a pure nasal
vocalic appendix.
e.g : chin'utsu = [tC i u~ u ts u]
([C] being in IPA a "c" ended with a curl; [u] is japanese central u)
nen = [n e~ N] or [n e~ i~]
([N] being the nasal counterpart of [q], not [k]). This [N] only denotes an unpure
nasal vowel like in Portuguese.
>
> >
> > julien> Spanish vowels are all nasal ones
> >
> > When?
> >
Said otherwise : there is not a single oral vowel in Spanish.
Since every vowel is nasal, nasalization is not considered as a phonemic feature, nor
as a feature that has to be described, shown and recognized among Spanish learners or
Spanish native speaker.
That's just like French trend to puff air after close vowels in final position
([u][y][i][e][ø]). Nobody is aware of that, and nobody says you have to puff in French
learning books.
Ygor Coelho
The words derived from french aren't cognates. That text is from the
Portuguese Grammar, in the part of the book about foreign words
adopted by the portuguese. Any cognates are included there. What can
happen is a latin-derived word that in portuguese disappeared and
later the portuguese adopted the word again copying it from french.
Notice that many cases can appear: the verb DELETAR, derived from the
english TO DELETE, comes from the latin, but in portuguese this verb
already exists: DELIR. Notice that the portuguese has two words with
the same origin but different evolutions: one comes from english,
almost intact, and the other has evoluted during centuries until the
form DELIR.
I've noticed you think everyone are ignorant, but you. I'm not a
linguist so I'm not obligated to hear vietnamese, since it isn't a
major language and the country where this language is spoken is a
little forgotten.
I think you all have exagerated everything! I was wrong when I said
portuguese is the richest language in the world, but it was the only
thing you were right complaining. I said portuguese is a interesting
language because it is considered by many people a beautiful and lyric
language and it is a major language in the world, spoken in almost all
the parts of the world. That's all! You face it as I have been saying
portuguese is the only beautiful, interesting, rich and important
language in the world. English, arabic, hindi, russian, french,
spanish, chinese and many other languages can be important, each one!
Chinese is very important, too, I'm not telling you the instead of it.
Alias, Chinese might be most important than portuguese: China is a
huge country and in the future it will be one of the most rich ones in
the world. I don't know anything about this language since in Brazil
almost nobody speaks it, but I'm sure it's very important. I'm not a
expert in linguistics, so... What can I do? Besides, I have 14 years
old. It's early to know everything!
The portuguese has influenced specially some european languages and
languages spoken in the Orient, as malaysian. I don't know if it is
the language that has most contributed with the evolution of the
languages, but it has, I don't doubt. Chinese was a empire, it has
surely contributed with more words to other languages than portuguese,
spanish or many others!
Yes, in all the languages the adoption of words happens! In
portuguese, it has been happening faster, now.
You are comparing! I don't want to know if english has words that are
not counted in the dictionary, I'm telling you that portuguese has
many words in the vocabulary and, as the other languages, has many
words that are not counted. I said a example as curiosity.
- Gostos não se discutem, mas que geram muita discussão ninguém pode
negar!!!
Ygor Coelho
I didn't want to continue in these comparisons between portuguese and
chinese, but as you insist... Well, let's go by parts.
> Have you studied (and hence compared) the history of other languages?
> If not, then how can you be so sure Portugese is as unique as you
> assume it to be?
As I told you, I'm not a linguist. It's a pity I have no books to read
about the history of the languages. Many languages must have a history
as or more interesting as the history of the portuguese. What I like
in portuguese is the mixture of languages of so many different
linguistic groups: the latin (about 80% of the vocabulary, at least in
Brazil), the different indian groups (thousands and thousands of
words, specially in the colloquial speech), the germanic (thousands of
words derived from english, specially, german and dutch) and the
african language groups. You may be sure when I have condition to read
about other languages, I will like those that has this characteristic
as well as I like in portuguese.
> Latin is relatively new, when compared to Chinese (descended from
> Middle Chinese and formerly Old Chinese), Hindi (descended from
> Sanskrit) and Farsi (descended from Persian). All of these languages
> have a much longer history than, unfortunately, your beloved
> Portugese.
What has it to do with the history of portuguese? A language can't
evolute only because of the years it has. Many others factors are
included in.
> Ygor> Besides, as Portugal and Spain are very relationed, several
> Ygor> spanish words became portugese words, too. Independent of
> Ygor> the Muslim Empire, Portugal became a rich and important
> Ygor> country. The portuguese language became the most important
> Ygor> language in the world during the centuries XIV and XV.
This corner you are talking about is the Orient. When the chineses,
malaysians, hindis, japaneses and other peoples of this region met the
europeans, the way to communicate with the europeans was speaking
portuguese. The "official language" to the trade among europeans
peoples and asiatic peoples was the portuguese. Later, it was
substituted by other languages, obviously.
> I think the Japanese did so at least millenium before you did. They
> still call it "chya", which is close to the pronunciation of Middle
> Chinese.
Congratulations! I explained you why I'm not interested in knowing the
years of a word or of a language. I may be wrong, but let the time
show me this.
> Just hundreds!? Hahahahaha....
I said hundreds because I don't know the number. I could say
thousands, but it will be the same since I'm not sure of the number of
words. The linguists in Brazil are not interested in counting the
words derived from a language, they study the fact: the english has
contributed with words and more words in the last century. I think it
isn't hundreds because in 2002 some thousands of words has been
adopted by the portuguese official vocabulary and most of them are
from english. If in a year thousands of words were adopted, we can
realize how many thousands of words were adopted in two centuries of
english influence!
> Ygor> In german: Ich habe ein kranke.
Hehehehehehehehehe, I doubted it! I don't speak german... What is the
correct form of this phrase?
Do you have jealousy of other languages? Chinese will be the second or
the first most important language in the world. Can't portuguese be
the fifth, for example?? If I am an enthusiastic of chinese, certainly
you're, too!
Ygor Coelho
students' site where people who are learning portuguese discuss and
ask for explications about this language. I asked them what they think
of portuguese: the good things and the bad things. Some testimonies:
- Hi, I am a Canadian fluent in French, English and Spanish, with some
knowledge of Italian. I have started learning Brasilian Portuguese
three months ago, a couple of hours a week. I can tell you from my
experience that Portuguese is more difficult than Spanish for the
pronunciation and the numerous accents (when writing) - verbs grammar
is also a bit tricky, with some tenses that do not exist in the other
'roman' idioms. However, I like the language very much for its
musicality, its evident preference for the 'oral' expression and
consequent adaptation. I do not know how to put it, but I get a sense
that the Brazilian speakers have, over time, seeked 'facility' (on the
positive side) in the way they adapted the words from their original
roots (in latin) - this comparison is very evident when compared with
French, as the brazilian portuguese pronunciation is on the side of
'relaxed' French. This suits me perfectly because it is much, much,
closer to the French spoken here in Quebec, Canada, than how it is
pronounced in France, or Europe in general - we are very strong on
using nasal sounds. In a few words, I fully enjoy learning this
wonderful, lively, language, and look very much forward to the
opportunity of visiting Brazil any time soon. Tchau !
- I'm learning Brasilian portuguese from two friends of mine who live
there, and also from a private tutor in my area. The language is
exceptionally beautiful, and I love to listen to it. The nasal vowels
were tricky at first, but my teacher explained them to me in an
extremely effective way, and it's easier now. I speak fairly
respectable Spanish, so the Portuguese grammar is a smaller jump than
it would have been otherwise. So far the problem is understanding
people talking quickly: all the ghost letters and shortened/slurred
words confuse me.
- Hi Igor, for me Portuguese is a language that is melodic whenspoken
by women, authoritative when spoken by men,...how convenient for
something to embrace both sexualities. In addition, in comparison to
spanish, of which I am familiar, Portuguese is an expedited spoken
language. Portuguese wasted no lettering or thought when conceivable.
In addition, studying o porto is a great mental exercise, plus when in
rio during Ano Novo or Carnaval it helps you find cerveza
estupidamente gelado. Is that right?
Ygor Coelho
languages of the Orient, during the XV and XVI centuries:
From 1511, the Portuguese introduced the Latin / Roman alphabet to
Malacca. They brought missionaries with them. St. Francis Xavier
(1545) and other Catholic missionaries, teachers and settlers not only
learned the Bahasa but also taught the Malays how to speak and write
Portuguese and use the 2 languages. The Jawi alphabet started to
decline and slowly disappeared. They were good cartographers, experts
in drawing maps and masters in navigation. They were extremely
successful also in their easy miscegenation in Brazil and in Malaysia
and in their enormous ability to adapt to the hot climate. They mixed
with local women creating the "Mulatos" in Brazil (a mixture of white
and black) and the Eurasians in the Portuguese settlements, a mixture
of Portuguese and Malays. A new language was also born, a "bridge"
between Portuguese and Bahasa called "Papia Cristang". 500 years have
passed but till today, if one tries to speak to the locals in the
Malacca Portuguese settlement in the Portuguese language, they may be
able to recognize the basic sound and often are able to give an
understandable response. In the Catholic Sunday masses, they still
sing several songs and church hymns in Portuguese. They are an
operative community of about 1000 people, many of them fishermen. The
Brazilians and the Portuguese are very happy that they share this
common heritage, the heritage of the language, a miracle of five
centuries made possible by the "Papia Cristang".
About 230 million people speak Portuguese. About 230 million people
speak Bahasa. Indeed the Malaysian Bahasa and the Indonesian Bahasa
are similar, just like Portuguese and Spanish. Bahasa is spoken in
four countries (including Singapore and Brunei) and Portuguese in
eight (including Timor). I have been studying Bahasa for over one
year, therefore I am still a long way from being proficient and fluent
in it. But my scarce knowledge was enough to motivate me to buy a
dictionary and research. I began the comparison by using a
Malay—English dictionary, published by Pelanduk. It is a small one
with about 10,000 words only. First I tried to identify the words,
according to my knowledge of Latin and Greek, the languages from which
Portuguese originated. Then I copied the words. I found 400 such words
in this small dictionary of 10,000 words, words which had their roots
in Portugal, from Greek, Latin, Arabic, Italian, French, Castilian,
Provencal etc and brought to Malacca between 1511 and 1641.
When the English arrived about 300 years later, in the XIX century,
they were lucky to find that the Roman / Latin alphabet brought by the
Portuguese was dominant here. Many English and Portuguese words were
the same. They originated from Latin, which was brought to Portugal
and England by the Romans. Therefore communication became much easier
to the English settlers because of Portuguese.
This led me to the idea of preparing a Glossary of the Portuguese
words used in Bahasa Melayu, using the English language as a bridge
for comparison to facilitate smoother comprehension and evidence of
their Portuguese origin. One column is reserved for Portuguese
language chronology, indicating the period within which the words were
introduced and written in the Portuguese dictionaries, until the
moment when the Portuguese left in the 17th century. Finally there is
one column for the language of origin of a particular word. We begin
with "abdikasi", "abdicação", "abdication", a typical Portuguese word
of the 16th century that came from Latin. And on to "abdomen",
"abstrak", "admiral" "akta", "aktif", "alabangka", "algebra", "almari"
and so forth. From A to Z, I found 400 Portuguese words, positively
proven, which actually totals up to 4% of the total number of words in
the dictionary. The success of the research led me to prepare a larger
Glossary using a bigger dictionary, the Kamus Perwira consisting of
about 40,000 words. I went through the larger dictionary and found
1500 words clearly originating from Portuguese and vice versa. There
are also over a dozen words in Portuguese that originated from the
Bahasa Melayu. For example, "bamboo" in Portuguese came from the Malay
word "bamboo" as well as the word "jong" or "jung" for river boat.
"Mangga" the fruit, is "manga" in Portuguese, "sago" a sort of food,
is called "sago" in Portuguese. "Manggis" is "mangostino", "piring" is
"saucer", and "lanca" is "lancha", a quick boat.
Five centuries have passed since the arrival of Albuquerque and the
contribution of the Portuguese to Bahasa Melayu is undeniable. There
are also some words from Tupi, a Brazilian native language. For
example, "caju", ("cashew"), and "piranha", a wild fish. The miracle
of the survival of the Portuguese language in Malaysia is due to, I
repeat, this bridge, "the Papia Cristang". It is a reason for just
pride for the Portuguese community of Malacca and elsewhere in
Malaysia. I became their friend after numerous visits to Malacca
between 1999 and 2001. I dedicate the 1st version of the 400 words
Glossary to them.
The common Portuguese language is the one of the largest and most
important similarity between us. Wherever I go, my Malaysian friends
kindly remind me that "sapatu" comes from Portuguese, or "meja",
"keju", "kemeja", "almari", "bangku", "sekolah", "gerejah" and so
forth. But the few common words that all of us know are no more than
the tip of the iceberg. In the bigger version of the Glossary as I
mentioned above, I identified 1500 Portuguese words and I repeat, it
comes to 4% of the Malay language. This miracle is due to the
miscegenation of the Portuguese-Malay and to the dialect "Papia
Cristang" ("Papear Cristão") which has been a solid "cement bridge"
between Portuguese and Bahasa, even after the Portuguese conquistadors
were expelled in 1641. All this was made possible by the industrious
Malaysian descendants of the Portuguese. The words brought by the
Portuguese, came to Portugal from many other sources beyond Latin such
as Arabic, Sanscrit, Provencal, Castilian, Romanche, Celtic. Obviously
90% came to Portugal from our mother tongue, Latin. A couple of dozen
were introduced by the Arabic almoravides during their eighth century
occupation of Portugal (711 — 1492). Consequently, the year 1511 is a
historical language landmark for Malaysia. It marks, as already
mentioned, the beginning of the decline of the "Jawi" alphabet and the
introduction of the Latin, Roman alphabet brought by the Portuguese,
the first European language to be spoken in South East Asia.
Ygor Coelho
all the continents. 53 asiatic languages in India, Ceylon, Thailand,
Vietnam, Indonesia, Burma, Formosa, Philippines, Japan and other
countries employ portuguese words, derived from the age where
portuguese was the most important language to the communication with
other peoples. In the XVI century, about 60 languages used portuguese
words. It means that almost all these languages have kept using
portuguese words.
The japanese, one of the major languages in Asia, has many words
derived from portuguese. Nagasaki was a commercial center totally
influenced by Portugal during many centuries. Because of it, people in
Nagasaki still are catholic and some people speak portuguese. The
portuguese people were the first who has met the japaneses and the
first who has made trade with them. A big part of the portuguese words
used in japanese are seldom used in the colloquial speech, but many
words derived from portuguese are part of everyday conversation in
Japan. Some of them:
Abito : port. hábito.
Amen : port. amém.
Amendo : port. amêndoa.
Anjo : port. anjo.
Banku : port. banco.
Baputesuma : port. batismo.
Barsan : port. bálsamo.
Bateren : port. padre.
Biidoro : port. vidro.
Birodo : port. veludo.
Bisukoto : port. biscoito.
Boru : port. bolo.
Butan : port. butão.
Confeto : port. confeito.
Ekirinji : port. igreja.
Furasuko : port. frasco.
Gomu : port. goma.
Inferno : port. inferno.
Truman : port. irmão.
Jaketsu : port. jaqueta.
Jejun : port. jejum.
Jiban : port. jibão.
Kapitan : port. capitão.
Kappa : port. capa.
Karisu : port. cálice.
Karusan : port. cruz.
Kurusu : port. calção.
Karuta : port. carta.
Kataru : port. catarro.
Katoriku : port. católico.
Kirishtan : port. católico.
Kirismo : port. crisma.
Kohisan : port. confissão.
Kompasu : port. compasso.
Kompra : port. compra.
Kontasu : port. contas (do rosário).
Koppu : port. copo.
Koreijo : port. colégio.
Manteka : port. manteiga.
Manto : port. manto.
Maruchiru : port. mártir.
Orashyo : port. oração.
Ostiya : port. hóstia.
Pan : port. pão.
Pappu : port. papa.
Paraizo : port. paraíso.
Pisturu : port. pistola.
Sabon : port. sabão.
Seito : port. santo.
Sinnyoro : port. senhor.
Tabako : port. tabaco.
Tanto : port. tanto.
Javier BF
> > >
> > > When?
> > >
>
> Said otherwise : there is not a single oral vowel in Spanish.
> Since every vowel is nasal, nasalization is not considered as a phonemic feature, nor
> as a feature that has to be described, shown and recognized among Spanish learners or
> Spanish native speaker.
> That's just like French trend to puff air after close vowels in final position
> ([u][y][i][e][ø]). Nobody is aware of that, and nobody says you have to puff in French
> learning books.
I'm a native Spanish-speaker and I can perfectly recognize
the difference between our clear oral vowels and the nasal
ones of French and Portuguese. I've heard all three languages
many times, I can pronounce both oral and nasal vowels without
any difficulty and I can perfectly notice and discern when
I'm hearing or pronouncing an oral vowel and when a nasal one.
And I never pronounce (nor hear pronounced by other native
speakers) a properly nasal vowel in Spanish. Only when in
contact with nasal consonants our vowels become *slightly*
nasalized (which is still far from making them properly nasal).
In fact, the nasal sound of French and Portuguese is probably
what I most dislike in those languages, it makes them sound
"obscure" and "ugly" to my ears. Spanish definitely never sounds
that nasal. And, if you still need a tangible proof, I can record
for you a paragraph in Spanish twice, first as it is actually
pronounced in Castilian Spanish and then nasalizing the vowels as
you say Spanish always does. You'll see both versions aren't the
same at all (in fact, Spanish humorists make use of nasalization
to produce a disordered-speech effect--to imitate the speech
of "gangosos"--, often suggesting imbecility altogether).
julien daux
>
> I'm a native Spanish-speaker and I can perfectly recognize
> the difference between our clear oral vowels and the nasal
> ones of French and Portuguese. I've heard all three languages
> many times, I can pronounce both oral and nasal vowels without
> any difficulty and I can perfectly notice and discern when
> I'm hearing or pronouncing an oral vowel and when a nasal one.
> And I never pronounce (nor hear pronounced by other native
> speakers) a properly nasal vowel in Spanish. Only when in
> contact with nasal consonants our vowels become *slightly*
> nasalized (which is still far from making them properly nasal).
> In fact, the nasal sound of French and Portuguese is probably
> what I most dislike in those languages, it makes them sound
> "obscure" and "ugly" to my ears. Spanish definitely never sounds
> that nasal. And, if you still need a tangible proof, I can record
> for you a paragraph in Spanish twice, first as it is actually
> pronounced in Castilian Spanish and then nasalizing the vowels as
> you say Spanish always does.
The quality of the spanish nasality is surely not the same as in French (Portuguese also
doesn't have the same nasality as in French).
What one can say for sure, is that spanish so-called "oral vowels" do NOT have the oral
clarity and the zero-nasalisation of their French counterparts.
To make a comprimise, one can say Spanish "oral" vowels are half on the way between French
oral and nasal vowels. Even if with my French hears, they are more nasal than oral.
And also : don't forget you are the worst person (as native speaker of Spanish) to judge of
Spanish vowel quality. As I've mentionned in my previous post, French are not aware of
their air-puffing after close vowels. So you are not supposed to be aware of Spanish
nasals.
note : nasality in Spanish is of course a matter of accent, not of etymologie. that's just
a proof of a relaxed and leak and effortless and un-articulate pronouciation.
Lee Sau Dan
Ygor> The portuguese language was the first modern language to be
Ygor> spoken in all the continents. 53 asiatic languages in India,
....................^^^
??? In North America? In Australia? And Antarctica?
Ygor> Ceylon, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Burma, Formosa,
Ygor> Philippines, Japan and other countries employ portuguese
Ygor> words, derived from the age where portuguese was the most
Ygor> important language to the communication with other
Ygor> peoples.
How about Tibetan and Mongolian?
Ygor> In the XVI century, about 60 languages used portuguese
Ygor> words. It means that almost all these languages have kept
Ygor> using portuguese words.
How many used and are using Arabic words? How many used and are using
Chinese words? How many used and are using Sanskrit words?
Ygor> The japanese, one of the major languages in Asia, has many
Ygor> words derived from portuguese.
That's just a few, when compared to the number of English and Chinese
loans in Japanese.
Lee Sau Dan
Ygor> Chinese might be most important than portuguese:
Ygor> China is a huge country and in the future it will be one of
Ygor> the most rich ones in the world. I don't know anything about
Ygor> this language since in Brazil almost nobody speaks it,
Really?
And how about Japanese? There are many Japanese in Brazil! Have you
ever thought of learning Japanese, then?
Ygor> but I'm sure it's very important. I'm not a expert in
Ygor> linguistics, so... What can I do?
Learn more!
Ygor> Besides, I have 14 years old. It's early to know everything!
It's also too early to believe in the stupid claim that Portugese is
the most beautiful language.
Ygor> Yes, in all the languages the adoption of words happens! In
Ygor> portuguese, it has been happening faster, now.
Still not as extensively as Japanese. Learn some Japanese before you
go to claim that Portugese have many loans. Compared to Japanese,
that's nothing.
Given that there are so many Japanese in Brazil, you should have no
excuse not to learn more about Japanese, if Chinese looks
uninteresting to you. (Mind you: recent figures have revealed that
Chinese is now the 3 most common language in Canada, after English and
French.)
Lee Sau Dan
>> Have you studied (and hence compared) the history of other
>> languages? If not, then how can you be so sure Portugese is as
>> unique as you assume it to be?
Ygor> As I told you, I'm not a linguist. It's a pity I have no
Ygor> books to read about the history of the languages.
Aren't there decent libraries in your city?
If such books aren't readily available in Portugese, then, you should
have an idea of how important this language is!
Ygor> Many languages must have a history as or more interesting as
Ygor> the history of the portuguese. What I like in portuguese is
Ygor> the mixture of languages of so many different linguistic
Ygor> groups:
Then, you should find Japanese more interesting!
Ygor> You may be sure when I have condition to read about
Ygor> other languages, I will like those that has this
Ygor> characteristic as well as I like in portuguese.
I've pointed out Japanese to you. It's your homework now.
>> Latin is relatively new, when compared to Chinese (descended
>> from Middle Chinese and formerly Old Chinese), Hindi (descended
>> from Sanskrit) and Farsi (descended from Persian). All of
>> these languages have a much longer history than, unfortunately,
>> your beloved Portugese.
Ygor> What has it to do with the history of portuguese?
Portugese has a relatively much shorter history. Only traces back to
Latin, which doesn't date back that far into the past.
Ygor> A language can't evolute only because of the years it
Ygor> has. Many others factors are included in.
Then, state your evidence that Portugese is evolving no slower than
the languages quoted above. If not, how can you convince people that
Portugese, despite having a shorter history, is more evolutionarily
"advanced" than Hindi, Farsi, Chinese, etc. ?
Ygor> This corner you are talking about is the Orient. When the
Ygor> chineses, malaysians, hindis, japaneses and other peoples of
Ygor> this region met the europeans, the way to communicate with
Ygor> the europeans was speaking portuguese.
When was that?
And when did Marco Polo made his trip to China? What language do you
think he used to communicate with the then Chinese Emperor and civil
servants?
And what language do you think the Portugese descendants in Macau, who
have been in Macau for many generations, speak when they deal with the
other people (e.g. bank tellers, shopkeepers) in Macau?
Ygor> The "official language" to the trade among europeans peoples
Ygor> and asiatic peoples was the portuguese. Later, it was
Ygor> substituted by other languages, obviously.
Substituted by what other languages?
Doesn't that illustrate that Portugese HAS ALREADY lost its importance
in such domains?
Ygor> In german: Ich habe ein kranke.
Ygor> Hehehehehehehehehe, I doubted it! I don't speak
Ygor> german... What is the correct form of this phrase?
Ich bin krank.
I don't think "Ich habe Kranke" is correct, at least in present
German. This is because "Kranke" means "sick person", or "patients".
A doctor or a nurse may say "Ich habe Kranke". But the patients
shouldn't. Maybe, you have "Ich habe Krankheit" in mind, which
parallels "Ich habe Hunger" or French "J'ai faim" / "J'ai chaud". But
I've never seen/heard "Ich habe Krankheit".
Ygor> Do you have jealousy of other languages?
No, not at all. That's why I learn many.
The more languages I've learnt, the more I think claims like "language
XXX is the most YYY" stupid, esp. when this "YYY" is a very
emotionally subjective description, such as "beautiful". Every
language has its beautiful parts and ugly parts. And which parts are
beautiful and which are ugly are subject. You may find the nasal
vowels in Portugese and French beautiful. I find them awful.
Ygor> Chinese will be the second or the first most important
Ygor> language in the world. Can't portuguese be the fifth, for
Ygor> example??
In any case, the claim that "Portugese is the most important language"
is simply groundless.
Ygor> If I am an enthusiastic of chinese, certainly you're, too!
I ain't.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> >>>>> "Ygor" == Ygor Coelho <ygor_...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> Ygor> The portuguese language was the first modern language to be
> Ygor> spoken in all the continents. 53 asiatic languages in India,
> ....................^^^
>
> ??? In North America? In Australia? And Antarctica?
Is Massachusetts, USA, not in North America? Portuguese is _still_ a
first language there, in the old whaling ports.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Peter T. Daniels
Nasalization is phonemic in French and Portuguese; for that reason, it
is necessary to keep the distinction between nasal and oral vowels
clear. Nasalization is not phonemic in English and Spanish, so vowels
may or may not be nasalized. It's easier to keep the velic closure
relaxed than to keep it tightly closed, so nasalization happens.
julien daux
>
> Nasalization is phonemic in French and Portuguese; for that reason, it
> is necessary to keep the distinction between nasal and oral vowels
> clear. Nasalization is not phonemic in English and Spanish, so vowels
> may or may not be nasalized. It's easier to keep the velic closure
> relaxed than to keep it tightly closed, so nasalization happens.
>
that's exactly what I think, too.
To Lee sau Dan,
I think I can claim with no mistake that every language with [N]-sound will contain some
nasal-tinted vowels. For example, even in the purest English accent with pure oral vowels, words
like "ping" "hung", cannot be un-nasalized.
[pi~N] [hV~N], especially with closed vowels.
Hence, Chinese /*ing/ are most likely pronouced with nasal [i]. Am I wrong ?
To Ygor or other portuguese-speakers :
French aren't aware of nasals. I mean, we are not told (neither taught) that our language
contains that distinctive feature for vowels. Moreover, we don't write it explicitly. On the
other hand, it seems that Portuguese are more "nasal-aware", that they usually know that it
exists, and they write it for "a" and "o" with a ~-sign.
In fact, for French, [a~] is 2 sounds : a + n. That is quite absurd I know, and a bit quick
claimed, but seen in another angle, I would say French won't consider that [a~] (or rather [A~])
is a vowel in itself in its own right comparable to [y] for example, or at least, won't
consider it elsewise than an augmented [a]-sound, or than a contextually ad-hoc pronounced
[a]-sound . In another words, it is an "a" with an "n" (sure, we hear just one sound, but we are
strongly I think influenced by the writing).
My question : what awareness do Portuguese have about their own nasals ?
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>For example, even in the purest English accent with pure oral vowels, words
>like "ping" "hung", cannot be un-nasalized.
They can; they just often aren't.
[...]
Brian
julien daux
I'm sure of my claim : unnasalised vowels before [N] can exist but are
REALLY difficult to pronounce. In a practical way, they will *always* be
nasalized.
The reason is simple : anticipation of the lowering of the uvula.
mike
they can, i think, because the bell can "pink" in some dialects of
english -- to the pangs of anxious hearts, "pang" becoming "pant" when
the nazalization isn't comfort making.
it pinks for thee.
england was motel atlantic with many different people staying there, they
having many ways of speaking the same talk-set.