Romance Languages Mutual Intelligibilty

Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:47 am GMT
, Spanish phonetic peculiarities (the 'j' and 'z' sounds, and the blurred distinction between 'b' and 'v' are a lot more distant from what Latin sounded like. Standard Italian is certainly much closer

The italian sound sh doesnt exists in Latin either, nor double consonants. Also closed e and o are not present in Latin. So Italian is not closer to Latin than Spanish. Obviously French isnt as well.
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:52 pm GMT
<<French doesn't sound beautiful at all just because it does not sound like a Romance language.
German is the worst of German languages, it is more than horrible.
English is not beautiful nor refined but it is latinized enough to sound acceptable.>>

Ugh -- Latin trollery, foam-laced, hate-tinged, and all...


Ugh -- American wannabe french trollery, foam-laced, hate-tinged, and all...
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:53 pm GMT
Italian, Spanish and French are all heavily barbarised and quite far away from classical Latin. Romanian is the only one that has kept some few structures from Latin.
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:56 pm GMT
Romanian sounds very slavic. A Roman emperor surely would find more familiar the sounding of Spanish.
Andreea   Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:58 pm GMT
neah, Spanish sounds very Arabic, and Italian germanic, I don't think he would be more familiar with those languages
K. T.   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:02 pm GMT
Romanian reminds me a lot of Latin from the look of the words. There are also words that I puzzle over. Sometimes I can figure out the possible origin, sometimes not. For a long time (certainly when I was child), I falsely thought that Romanian was a Slavic language. It is both familiar and very foreign to me, but that makes it interesting to learn.
muhahaa   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:05 pm GMT
Latin itself sounds very greek. Romulus or Numa surely would find more familiar the sounding of lithuanian.
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:13 pm GMT
Spanish sounds Arabic? man, you are strange, Spanish has 5 vowels and Arabic 3, Spanish is spoken with the lips , teeth and the tip of the tongue. Arabic is spoken with the throat. Probably German sounds a bit similar to Arabic. Spanish is known for preserving quite well the classic Latin prosody and pronunciation. Romanian on the other hand sounds slavic, and French God knows what.
guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:31 pm GMT
Spanish to me sounds Mexican or perhaps Aztecan...definitely not like the Latin of the Roman senators.
guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:33 pm GMT
either way, move my car...
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:34 pm GMT
In fact Spanish sounds very much like Greek, which had even more prestige than Latin for the Roman Senators.
Grigore   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:35 pm GMT
Romanian DOES NOT sound slavic!
If this sounds slavic for you then you are certainly deaf!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_C7SK8DDMGo
guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:35 pm GMT
GREEK? That peasant talk?

I prefer to elaborate in Persian over (spit) GREEK
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:38 pm GMT
Indeed Romanian sounds very latin, I don't know from where this impressesion that romanian sounds slavic...
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:42 pm GMT
Romanian slavic?

are you kidding right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJaPpkZqSj4