Germanic elements in Italian and French, arabic in Spanish

X2TheZ   Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:09 pm GMT
The vocabularies of Spanish and Portuguese have borrowed extensively from Arabic, those of French and Italian from Germanic.

(Marion Pei, The World's Chief Languages, Colombia University, 1949)


does anyone has an actually percent of how much this languages were influenced by germanic respective arabic in their vocabulary?
Skippy   Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:47 pm GMT
Well... French and Italian (and I think Spanish and Portuguese as well) use Germanic terms for directions (North South East and West)
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:50 pm GMT
Marion Pei?
guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:53 pm GMT
Portuguese has borrowed extensively from Arabic???

That's news to me...
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:58 pm GMT
Norte sur este y oeste no son palabras germánicas, sino que provienen del latín vulgar. El español está prácticamente libre de influencias germánicas, y las árabes se limitan a vocabulario que en cualquier momento puede cambiar y desaparecer. Por ejemplo hace un siglo a las panaderías se las decía "tahonas", que es una palabra árabe,mientras que ahora sólo dicen tahona las viejas de los pueblos.
X2TheZ   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:03 pm GMT
Mario not Marion ...sorry
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:04 pm GMT
If you can't spell his name properly I must deduce that you just invented that quote.
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:06 pm GMT
<<Norte sur este y oeste no son palabras germánicas, sino que provienen del latín vulgar. >>

FALSE.
Besides, V. Latin is RIFE with germanic elements.
Romance languages borrowed the compass terms directly from ENGLISH sailors (cf. Fr. "ouest", not west[pro. "vest"]/guest/or guête and Sp. "norte" for Eng. "north", not "norde")

<<El español está prácticamente libre de influencias germánicas>>
Better check again...

Also, elements include more than just words, they include other features of language like pronunciation/accent, verbal constructions, idioms, semantics, usage...a whole host of other things
X2TheZ   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:06 pm GMT
Mario Pei a famous italian-american linguist and polyglot, who wrote a number of popular books known for their accessibility to readers without a professional background in linguistics.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9058961/Mario-Pei
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:08 pm GMT
Yes, I know it already.
X2TheZ   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:11 pm GMT
For Guest


The book it's called THE WORLD'S CHIEF LANGUAGES, first published in Great Britain 1949

Mario Pei was Associate Professor of Romance Languages at Columbia University.

And I have the pdf of the book and this is quote from the book :

"The vocabularies of Spanish and Portuguese have borrowed extensively from Arabic, those of French and Italian from Germanic"
guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:13 pm GMT
<<El español está prácticamente libre de influencias germánicas>>

rico
blanco
ropa
guía
guerra
gris
grupo
bandera
brisa
jardin
lista
taco
alojar
ganar
banca
salón
...
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:13 pm GMT
I know that book and I don't remember to have read that.
X2TheZ   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:20 pm GMT
Page 172 :)
Guest   Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:22 pm GMT
Which paragraph?
I don't see it.