French vs Italian vs Spanish vs Portuguese vs Chinese

Viri Amaoro   Wed Apr 05, 2006 12:10 am GMT
We must find a common, neutral and accepted language for all Europeans. Soon!
CHINESE   Wed Apr 05, 2006 2:10 am GMT
Viri Amaoro
<<We must find a common, neutral and accepted language for all Europeans. Soon!>>

Since human being subsisted on earth, None of the languages has ever become an accepted, common and neutral International or European language, and without doubt, this visional daydream will also Never come true in the future, because everybody loves his own native language, and None of the countries will be able to consider another foreign langauge as its official native language. And it would be too difficult to tell apart which langauge ought to become the common one, of all the existing languages.
Viri Amaoro   Wed Apr 05, 2006 3:11 am GMT
Hello Chinese!

I did'nt say that countries and nations had to change their languages! Look at us: we're communicating in english but this language isn't official in my country or yours and it will never be! We use it in INTER-NATIONAL communication but not in NATIONAL communication (within a country).

About english being common, neutral and accepted that is true between us, non-native english speakers/writers. The trouble is that when we speak to a native english-speaking person, he/she has an unfair advantage. In that situation english becomes common and accepted (at least for lack of alternatives) but NOT NEUTRAL.

What can we do to change this? Could we? Should we? I don't know.

P.S: and to those people who like to tell others "hey, what about english being the world langauge, life is unfair!" I must say this is one of many english expressions I absolutely dislike because it asks us to conform and accept the fate of things and the world as it is.

"life is unfair" shouldn't be the end of a sentence it should be the beggining of one: "Life is unfair: what are we gonna do about it?"
Javi   Tue Apr 18, 2006 2:23 pm GMT
Too bad interlingua didn't gain too much momentum, I'd say its a very good auxiliary language.


I can understand it as if it were my native language.
Viri Amaoro   Wed Apr 19, 2006 3:40 pm GMT
But Esperanto has on its side marketing power and a certain mystique.
greg   Wed Apr 19, 2006 11:53 pm GMT
Javi : ne t'inquiète pas. Interlingua marchera tôt ou tard.
Viri Amaoro   Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:18 pm GMT
When a language like Esperanto or Interlingua starts to build its influence, the masses will follow and everybody will say "why speak x or y when we've got Esperanto?"
globetrotter   Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:21 am GMT
can i just say that chinese is probably the least structured of the 4 languages you mentioned and that just about everything about it is improvised? i've been speaking it since birth and also speak portuguese and german and i can tell you that for foreigners, learning chinese is much harder b/c there are very little in terms of grammar rules. there's a lot of just "feeling" it and playing with words
Thijs Kuiken   Thu May 04, 2006 10:48 am GMT
Oh and have ye heard that Germany's economy is in the pits now, they've got a vachement high unemployment rate (12% th'last time I checked), and their schules are some of the worst around.

Fallen power or crippled giant. Either way, they're a large but struggling economy. Third in the world in size, but not esprit.
a.p.a.m.   Sat May 20, 2006 4:59 pm GMT
French and Portuguese sound similar. They are both very nasal and use the "jh" sound quite frequently. Is there a common contributor to this? Is there a Celtic connection here? Is there a possible Gaulish substratum in both languages?
Aldvs   Sat May 20, 2006 10:46 pm GMT
Latin or greek would be interesting candidates for such titanic project. Lots of languages share some or much of their influence and they are, by the way, updated.
Gringo   Sun May 21, 2006 3:44 pm GMT
««French and Portuguese sound similar.


They are both very nasal and use the "jh" sound quite frequently.

Is there a common contributor to this? Is there a Celtic connection here? Is there a possible Gaulish substratum in both languages?»»

a.p.a.m. You are making a big confusion. Gaulish and Celtiberian were both Celtic languages. The substratum is the Celtic for both languages (Portuguese and French). You probably think that the nasal and "jh" sounds are Gaulish but they were introduced much later. You will not find those sounds in Celtic or in the modern Celtic languages, like Irish, the way you find them in Portuguese or French. For French, nasalization started in Old French, that was after the Roman era.

As a common contributor to this, you find the Germanic tribes mainly those that lived scattered in the today Polish region and neighbouring areas. There were federations and alliances intermarriages conquering and joining of tribes. Franks, Suevi, Vandals were federations of smaller tribes sometimes with more than one king e.g. the Vandals, in Iberia, had two kings and settled far away from each other.

For Portugal the Hasding Vandals and Suevi that came from the today Polish region or neighbouring area (North west Germany)were the most probable source for this [the Siling Vandals “from” today Silesia Poland, that settled in Iberia left to North Africa, the Hasding kingdom (North Portugal, Galicia) was conquered by the Suevi with Roman help (this includes people)].

And for example, the Burgundians also had settled in the Vistula basin (Poland) before settling in the today French region.

Notice that Polish, Portuguese and French are the European languages that have nasal vowels.

In the past many other languages had nasal vowels e.g. Old Norse. If neighbouring tribes had nasal vowels no wonder Suevi and Vandals and other Germanic tribes also had them. http://hem.passagen.se/peter9/gram/f_uttal.html
Nun es   Sun May 21, 2006 4:56 pm GMT
Sorry guys, but i have to precise something. French are gaulish even gallic but GALLO-ROMANS (gallo-romains), GAULISH + ROMANS. The best illustration is LUGDUNUM; their capital constituted by Jules Cesar himself.
Nun es   Sun May 21, 2006 4:57 pm GMT
big mystake


"French are gaulish even gallic" is "French are NOT gaulish even gallic
Gringo   Mon May 22, 2006 1:49 pm GMT
««Breton, however, does have nasals that are similar to what you hear in French»»

(Notice that in theory Celtiberian belonged to the Continental Celtic languages and Britonic belonged to the the Insular Celtic )

The existence of the nasals in Breton, alone, does not explain the distribution area of the nasal sounds in Iberia.

The nasal vowels only exist in Portugal and Galicia (disappeared in many regions of Galicia due to Castilian influence).

We do not find them in Leonese, Mirandese, Catalan or other Iberian languages not even in the middle ages.

We can’t find the same “nasal” vowels in other regions of Spain. As Portuguese and some Spanish regions had the same Celtic influence at least one more dialect could have had nasal vowels but there is none.

Except the consonant ñ, that is the same as Portuguese nh and French ng, and is considered of Celtic origin, no other Spanish language has the same nasal vowels.

Spanish languages none.
French has four different nasal vowels.
Portuguese has 5 nasalized vowels, 4 nasalized diphthongs and 4 nasalized triphthongs.

Considering the hypothesis of a Breton or Gallic influence:

“LOS RESTOS ENCONTRADOS EN LA TUMBA DE UN PRÍNCIPE CELTA EN FITERO DEMUESTRAN LA INFLUENCIA GALA EN ESPAÑA”
http://www.noticiasdenavarra.com/ediciones/2005/08/21/vecinos/verano/d21ver33.388878.php


There is also a theory, by Untermann, that says that the Celticisation process of the Iberian Peninsula was caused by the people who arrived via the Atlantic Ocean from an area located between French Brittany and the mouth of the River Garona, and settled along the Galician and Cantabrian coast.

(This is just one theory among others. The proto-celtic area is much older.)

[Celtiberians: Problems and Debates by Francisco Burillo Mozota
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/index.html]

It does not explain why, even in the middle ages, only the region that was occupied by the Suevi kept the nasal sounds.


Sapir's (1921: 198) example of nasalization of vowels in Swabian is explained by the interaction of Swabisch with neighbouring French.

http://www.unspun.us/writings/langcon.html

If Celtic Iberia had a rich number of nasal vowels, "Spanish" languages (exept in Iberian and Basque areas) lost them on the way?

And the Suevi (in Germany), separated by land from the ones in Portugal-Galicia, both acquired nasal sounds from the native local people?