Home: Forum: Languages: Catalan and Spanish

Catalan and Spanish

Dawie   Wed Jan 11, 2006 1:02 pm GMT

Does anyone here have any experience with learning Spanish and Catalan at the same time? Any suggestions as to the best way of doing it and what some of the pitfalls can be (for example there are many cognates, both true and false between the 2 languages).

guest   Wed Jan 11, 2006 3:09 pm GMT

CATALAN-------- SPANISH pugna--pugna, irrupcio--irrupcion,del--del,partit-- partido ,terres-- tierras, que----que, campanya---campaña, electoral----electoral, basca--vasca, una----- una, reunio------reunion, pacte--pacto, llista--lista, qual--cual, vot--vot, comissio--comision, tribunal--tribunal, suprem--suprem, il.legalitzacio--ilegalizacion, disposat--dispuesto, veure--ver, el--el, recurs--recurso, despres--despues, desafiar--desafiar, permetre--permitir, diputat--diputado, ja--ya, ho--lo, lider--lider, ocupin--ocupen, entrada--entrada, carta--carta, si--si, sino--sino, democracia--democracia, burla--burla, lluita--lucha, lleialtat--lealtad, candidatura--candidatura, militancia--militancia, absoluta--absoluta, president--presidente, tambe--tambien, estimen--estiman, prosperitat--prosperidad, desmentir--desmentir, vicepresidenta--vicepresidenta, adversi--adversario, proclamar--proclamar, lamentar--lamentar, desvincular--desvincular, presvist--previsto, inversions--inversiones, comicis--comicios, actual--actual, fortalesa--fortaleza, afrontar--afrontar, trama--trama, setmanalment--semanalmente, partir--partir, prova--prueba, queixa--queja, diligencia--diligencia, aclarir, aclarar, televisio--television, canceller--canciller, moment--momento,antigues--antiguas, esperava--esperaba, retirar-se--retirarse, pensament--pensamiento, em--me, victoria--victoria, mes--mas, crec--creo, personalment--personalmente, considera--considera, consecutiva--consecutiva, sera--sera, realment--realmente, perque--porque, prestigi--prestigio, ell--el, passa--pasa, vencedor--vencedor, desmentir--desmentir, tenir--tener, presentara--presentará, motivacio--motivacion, veu--ve,corredors--corredores, identica--identica, convincent--convincente, ciclisme--ciclismo, ocasions--ocasiones, pressio--presion, mesquita--mezquita, casos--casos, pronuncia--pronuncia, famosa--famosa, frase--frase, pero--pero, aqui--aqui, no--no, sempre--siempre, immigracio--inmigracion, nostra--nuestra, llengua--lengua,elements--elementos, dificils--dificiles, global--global, regles--reglas, governador--gobernador, metodes--metodos, territori--territorio, miseria--miseria, barreres--barreras, problema--problema, inalterables--inalterables, contra--contra, perdedors--perdedores, zona--zona

guest   Wed Jan 11, 2006 3:11 pm GMT

vot-voto, suprem-supremo

Brennus   Wed Jan 11, 2006 10:58 pm GMT

Re:Spanish & Catalán The two languages were once more alike. In fact, some linguists believe that Catalán was originally a Castillian dialect which simply came under some strong French and Provençal influences. Charlemagne, King of the Franks, had established the 'Spanish March' in Catalonia in 781 as a barrier against the Muslim Moors. About this same time, the Kingdom of Asturias further west was beginning to drive the Moors out of Galicia and northern Castile. If you can find some bilingual poetry published in Spanish and Catalán, that is probably one of the best ways to study and learn them together.

Travis   Wed Jan 11, 2006 11:16 pm GMT

Brennus, don't even try to think that you know anything about this subject, and just because you speak of "some linguists" does not mean anything in and of itself. For starters, Catalan is simply an offshoot of Old Occitan which gradually became separate from it, and is not nearly as close to Castilian, being significantly further from it than, say, Portuguese is. Furthermore, to say that it is somehow an offshoot of Castilian is completely contradictory to the expansion pattern of the Romance languages other than Mozarabic in the Iberian peninsula. This is because Castilian originated in the center of the far north of Spain, to the immediate west of the Basque-speaking area, and that area is separated from the north of the what would become the Catalan-speaking area by both the Basque-speaking area and the north of the Aragonese-speaking area. Consequently, it is a far more realistic hypothesis that Catalan originated simply by the spread of Old Occitan-speakers over the Pyrennes into the Iberian peninsula than to somehow presume that Castilian got transported wholesale over the Basque and Aragonese-speaking areas and then became almost completely transformed into a language very close to Old Occitan. Such a hypothesis makes no sense when one considers that Catalan is very close to Occitan as a whole in a way that could not be explained by just superstratum or substratum influence, and the Catalan speaking area in Spain comes directly up against the historical Old Occitan-speaking area in what is present-day France, whereas it was (mostly) isolated from the Castilian-speaking area in the time frame being spoken about (the earlier phases of the Reconquista).

Brennus   Wed Jan 11, 2006 11:42 pm GMT

Travis, Re: "For starters, Catalan is simply an offshoot of Old Occitan..." Not likely. Catalan shares some features with Castillian (Spanish) not shared by Occitan. Also Occitan speakers are Frenchmen. Catalonians have been Spaniards since time immemorial.

Travis   Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:09 am GMT

>>Travis, Re: "For starters, Catalan is simply an offshoot of Old Occitan..." Not likely. Catalan shares some features with Castillian (Spanish) not shared by Occitan. Also Occitan speakers are Frenchmen. Catalonians have been Spaniards since time immemorial.<< I said "Old Occitan" (call it "Old Provençal", "Langue d'oc", or whatever; that's just a term I used because it's probably more suitable than those other two terms), not "Occitan" as in that of today. Second, it is hard to speak of "Frenchman" and "Spaniards" here, as in the time frame being spoken of here, "France" and "Spain" as we know them today did not even exist; "Spain" was just a series of kingdoms (often with their own separate languages) to the north of the Muslim-controlled portion of the Iberian peninsula, and no notion of "France" in the sense of a nation existed yet (one would have to wait until the last phase of the Hundred Years' Wars for such). Third, would it not be surprising that Castilian would have at least some influence on Catalan in the centuries following the union of the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon (of which Catalonia was part), considering the dominance of Castilian in the potions of the Iberian peninsula which came under the rule of the Kingdom of Spain? Even still, Catalan is much further from Castilian than Portuguese and Galician are, for example, and is, in comparison, much closer to Occitan than it is to any of the other languages spoken on the Iberian peninsula even after being exposed to the influence of Castilian for approximately 500 years.

Catalanòfon   Thu Jan 12, 2006 5:58 am GMT

Not only you know no Romance philology at all but you know no history at all. Catalonia was independent from Spain until 1714! Everybody knows this. From the late 15th century to the early 18th cenury we shared a king but were independent kingdoms. A Spaniard from Castille could'nt even have an official job in Catalonia. Catalonia ruled over much of the Occitan lands until 1213! Spain and France didn't even exist and the Occitans of Lengadoc called the Catalans because the "French" (francés) had invaded them! It's known as the Battle of Muret, in 1213 and King Pere (Peter), count of Barcelona, died in that battle. There is even a monument in Muret to recall the fact. Since I have majored in Catalan Philology would you please take note that Catalan is the evolution of Latin as spoken in the Tarraconensis province (Tarragona is the second most important Catalan city right know). Since the Tarraconensis and the Narbonensis (Narbone in present day southern France) are neigbours of the Augustinian Way (from Rome to southern Spain) they had a similar settlement and evolved quited closely until the 13th century. Since the 16th century Catalan has been exposed to the influence of Castilian (Castilian was the most important western world language in the 16th century). Still Catalan has remained closer to Occitan than to Castilian, even in the syntax. French: J'habite a Marseille Occitan: Abiti a Marselha Catalan: Habite (visc) a Marsella Spanish: Vivo en Marsella I don't pretend to write a thesis but as Travis says don't pretend to know everything, specially that which you don't know. I haven't met a single philologist who says that Catalan is a Castilian dialect. It's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in this forum. I, of course, am an educated Catalan and I fluently speak Catalan, Occitan, Castilian and French. I know what I'm saying. Hispania, in Latin, was a geographical concept and included Portugal! Are the Portuguese also Spaniards from time immemorial?

Frank   Thu Jan 12, 2006 7:47 am GMT

If we talk about Spanish and Catalan, I want to ask what language is actually preferred in Catalonia? I mean do Catalonians really tend to communicate with each other in Catalan?

Brennus   Thu Jan 12, 2006 8:19 am GMT

Travis, As regards "Even still, Catalan is much further from Castilian than Portuguese and Galician are, for example, and is, in comparison, much closer to Occitan than it is to any of the other languages spoken on the Iberian peninsula..." Careful here. I hope you are getting your information from books by reliable Romance language scholars and not from what some people who post on the chat forums happen to say. Catalán is still classified by all Romance linguists that I know of as Ibero-Romance not Gallo-Romance like Occitan. However some Romance scholars do put Spanish and Portuguese in a subgroup called "western Ibero-Romance" and Aragonese and Catalán in an "eastern Ibero-Romance subgroup; the Pyranees Mountains are the dividing line here. The fact that Catalán has some French- and Provençal-like characteristics doesn't necesarily disqualifiy it as an Ibero-Romance language. Portuguese departs from Castillian at times too and comes closer to French and Provençal (a rua "the street, French la rue) even Sicilian and Romanian e.g. Portuguese a carne "the meat", Sicilian a carni (ah kar-nee); some Romanian-like characteristics can be found in Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish) e.g. fizhika; hizhika "daughter", Romanian fiicã "daughter". Nevertheless, all linguists seem to agree that Portuguese and Ladino are in the Ibero-Romance category.

Guest   Thu Jan 12, 2006 9:56 am GMT

>>As regards "Even still, Catalan is much further from Castilian than Portuguese and Galician are, for example, and is, in comparison, much closer to Occitan than it is to any of the other languages spoken on the Iberian peninsula..." Careful here. I hope you are getting your information from books by reliable Romance language scholars and not from what some people who post on the chat forums happen to say.<< Not all "accurate" sources are necessarily as accurate as one might expect. For example, SIL (the guys who've brought us Ethnologue) is notorious for grouping languages in a fashion which is quite counter to both present-day linguistic realities and the genetic organization of dialects. Secondly, you just mention such out of the middle of nowhere without having any actual indication of where I have learnt what I know about Catalan and Occitan and without actually mentioning any real sources of your own. If you're going to make accusations of people having unreliable sources and insist on the necessity of information directly from actual books by scholars, you should at least start citing *every* fact you assert, including title, author(s), page number(s), and hopefully line number(s) and printing info as well (so you can be called on such, considering it is you yourself who insisting on such in the first place). And if you don't like the idea of actually having to cite in a scholarly fashion everything which is not a matter of opinion which you state, then please shut up now. >>Catalán is still classified by all Romance linguists that I know of as Ibero-Romance not Gallo-Romance like Occitan. However some Romance scholars do put Spanish and Portuguese in a subgroup called "western Ibero-Romance" and Aragonese and Catalán in an "eastern Ibero-Romance subgroup; the Pyranees Mountains are the dividing line here.<< I would not exactly trust any statement about the structure of the Romance languages grouping-wise, simply as many aspects of such are simply not clear. However, I would strongly doubt any grouping of such which placed Catalan *closer to* Castilian, Portuguese, Galician, and Astur-Leonese than to Occitan. This is especially since Catalan is clearly an offshoot of Old Occitan, not of any of the languages spoken along the northern edge of the Iberian peninsula west of the Pyrennes. The only other Romance language other than Old Occitan which was in close proximity to the Catalan-speaking area was Aragonese, which was more widely spoken then than it is today, but I would be very surprised if it were *actually* closer to Catalan than Occitan, once one discounts the influence of Castilian.

Travis   Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:06 am GMT

>>The fact that Catalán has some French- and Provençal-like characteristics doesn't necesarily disqualifiy it as an Ibero-Romance language. Portuguese departs from Castillian at times too and comes closer to French and Provençal (a rua "the street, French la rue) even Sicilian and Romanian e.g. Portuguese a carne "the meat", Sicilian a carni (ah kar-nee); some Romanian-like characteristics can be found in Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish) e.g. fizhika; hizhika "daughter", Romanian fiicã "daughter". Nevertheless, all linguists seem to agree that Portuguese and Ladino are in the Ibero-Romance category.<< The matter here is that one has to discount a whole number of factors. For starters, shared archaisms must be discounted, in particular in the case of center-periphery effects, which can explain things such as shared words between Ladino and Romanian. Secondly, words which were spread by trade influences must also be discounted; with respect to this one must remember that there was a good amount of trade via the Atlantic Ocean going on between present-day Portugal and France historically. One way or another, though, the departures of Portuguese from Castilian are relatively minor compared to those of Catalan from Castilian. Furthermore, when considered in light of Catalan's close similarity to even present-day Occitan, one must see things not in terms of trying to justify putting Catalan in the same group as Castilian but rather trying to justify *not* putting Catalan and Occitan in the same immediate-level group.

Catalanòfon   Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:07 am GMT

Romance philologists now often speak of a group known as Occitan-Catalan and , which is actually a bridge between Ibero Romance and Gallo-Romance. You cannot study a language regarding the lexicon (words) only. Anyway, the basic Catalan lexicon is almost always Gallo-Romanic. Look at the parts of the body: Spanish Catalan French English cuerpo cos corps body dedo dit doigt finger ojo ull oeil eye uña ungla ongle nail nariz nas nez nose diente dent dent tooth rodilla genoll genou knee oreja orella oreille ear pelo pèl poil hair muslo cuixa cuisse thigh Colours azúl blau bleue blue amarillo groc jaune yellow verde verd verd green negro negre noir black rojo roig rouge red naranja taronja orange orange The basic vocabulary of Catalan (the 3000 most used words) are almost always Gallo-Romanic. It's a similar situation to English where the basic vocabulary is almost always Germanic whilst cultisms are more often French or Latin based. In our case cultisms are always almost the same in all Romance language and we have borrowed other terms from Spanish in the past centuries, which don't affect the back bone of the language Regardings morphology Catalan is nearer the Ibero-Romance languages and syntax is half-way between French and Spanish. Nevertheless the verbs are also gal·lo-romanic and not Iberian: encontrar trobar trouver to find buscar cercar chercher to look for etc. etc. etc. There are, of course, original solutions in Catalan as happens in all languages. The Pyrinnees are no dividing line. The Catalan language reaches Salses on the other side of the Pyrinnees (about 100 kms) and the dividing line is the Corbières mountain ranges. That explains why France annexed a part of Catalan language territory in 1659. Frank, native Catalan speakers usually prefer Catalan. I, myself, speak the language with my wife, children and all my family and friends. I would never say a word in Castilian with them. We also widely speak Catalan in our daily lives with unknown people. Everybody also knows Castilian (Spanish) since it is the official language of the State whilst Catalan is also official in the Catalan-speaking territories in Spain (almost 14 million people, roughly 30% of the whole Spanish population). Travis, you are on the right path. By the way, you also happen to be somebody who posts on chat forums. I think I'll go and practice my English elsewhere. If you're as accurate with the rest as you are with Catalan, good Lord!

guest   Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:25 am GMT

"the verbs are also gal·lo-romanic and not Iberian" LOL. Don´t give me your cock-and-bull story. SÓN ELS FETS EL QUE VALEN ser--ser, guanyar--ganar, enamorar--enamorar, provar--probar, convocar--convocar, retirar--retirar, estar--estar, anteposar--anteponer, donar--dar,anunciar--anunciar, preocupar--preocupar, despreocupar--despreocupar, humiliar--humillar, tornar--tornar, passar--pasar, descobrir--descubrir, abandonar--abandonar, comprovar--comprobar, pensar--pensar, resistir--resistir, diluir--diluir, actuar--actuar, advertir--advertir, reivindicar--reivindicar, demostrar--demostrar, aguantar--aguantar, mantenir--mantener, tener--tener, veure--ver, gastar--gastar, repartir--repartir, practicar--practicar, superar--superar, evitar--evitar, entrar--entrar, retenir--retener, pagar--pagar, elegir--elegir, renovar--renovar, elevar--elevar, lamentar--lamentar, acudir--acudir, decidir--decidir, derrotar--derrotar, traduir--traducir, obligar--obligar, negociar--negociar, subrallar--subrayar, integrar--integrar, necessitar--necesitar, treballar--trabajar, governar--gobernar, aconseguir--conseguir, reduir--reducir, identificar--identificar, arrasar--arrasar, deixar--dejar, resultar--resultar, entregar--entregar,autoritzar--autorizar, combinar--combinar, destacar--destacar, tractar--tratar, respirar--respirar,coneixer--conocer, obligar--obligar, eradicar--erradicar, casar-se--casarse, adquirir--adquirir, reduir--reducir, reconfortar--reconfontar, prestar--prestar, expressar--expresar protegir--proteger, anunciar--anunciar, saber--saber, marcar--marcar, elaborar--elaborar, observar--observar, esperar--esperar, detestar--detestar, questionar--cuestionar, quedar--quedar, reforçar--reforzar, seguir--seguir, desencadenar--desencadenar, votar--votar, aclarir--aclarar, precisar--precisar, generar--generar, exigir--exigir, respirar--respirar..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... (etcètera)

Guest   Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:57 am GMT

"The Pyrinnees are no dividing line. The Catalan language reaches Salses on the other side of the Pyrinnees (about 100 kms) and the dividing line is the Corbières mountain ranges. That explains why France annexed a part of Catalan language territory in 1659." Very true, a lot of people think Catalan as only a language of Spain. It is also a minority language of France. The catalan-speaking area in France (even if Catalan is much less spoken there than in Spanish side), it is quite big (almost one departement : Pyrénées-Orientales) with one big city : Perpignan (Perpinya). Roussillon (french Catalogna) is clearly on the north side of the Pyrénées.