Which Romance language sounds more Slavic?

Continental Portuguese sounds like a mix of Russian and Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese sounds like a mix of Romanian and Polish, with a touch of French.

Anglicki Tue Sep 01, 2009 6:57 am GMT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq_UMRj_BN0

This ad plays similarity between Portuguese and Russian.



No, that's Serbian, not Russian.

It's not Serbian but Bosnian vs Continental Portuguese.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq_UMRj_BN0

It's Bosnian.

One of my co-workers is Romanian and I have to listen to the language every day when he talks on the phone with his wife. Honestly, it sounds more slavic than Bulgarian. Portuguese can sound slavic, sometimes, but not always, and certainly not to the same extent as Romanian.

it sounds more slavic than Bulgarian?

Romanian sounds more slavic than a slavic language??? This is ridiculous!!

<<It's not Serbian but Bosnian vs Continental Portuguese. >>

I was quite close :D

Yeah, good for you. Where are you from?

yes, I've just remembered that Bosnian could sound more like Portuguese because they eat vowels all the time, especially "i".
Mediteran [medderan]
Hercegovina [Hercegovna] (pay attention on the ending -govna :D (It means shit)
etc...

<< it sounds more slavic than Bulgarian?

Romanian sounds more slavic than a slavic language??? This is ridiculous!! >>

That did sound ridiculous, sorry! I was thinking about Russian as a sort of archetypal slavic language, and to my ears, Romanian sounds more like Russian than Bulgarian does. That's what I meant.

<<Yeah, good for you. Where are you from?>>

Bulgaria

The best way to compare the sound of romanian with that of other languages is to listen it.
I have compiled a list of romanian radio and TV stations that can be listened/viewed for free on the interent.
I recommend the use of AIMP or Winamp for radio stations and KMPlayer or Windows Media Player for TV stations.

============================================
GENERAL PURPOSE RADIO STATIONS

Radio România Actualităţi (official state sponsored radio - Bucharest)
http://www.srr.ro/stream/rra.asx

Realitatea FM (news radio - audio stream of a news TV station - Bucharest)
http://194.169.235.131:8000/listen.pls

Radio Iaşi (radio station from the biggest city in the romanian region of Moldova)
http://am.live.radioiasi.ro:8000/listen.pls

Vocea Satelor [Voice of the Villages] (radio station intended for rural areas - various regions)
http://stream2.srr.ro:8042/listen.pls

Vocea Basarabiei (from Republic of Moldova - romanian dialect with a more pronounced slavic/russian accent)
http://87.248.162.116:8000/listen.pls

Radio Moldova (from Republic of Moldova - romanian dialect with a more pronounced slavic/russian accent)
http://radio.trm.md:8000/PGM1_256kb.m3u

============================================
MUSIC RADIO STATIONS

Radio Gold (romanian oldies - pop music probably from 1960-1990)
http://www.rogold.ro/play128.pls

Radio Net (romanian pop music - old and new)
http://radio.chatro.ro:8190/listen.pls

Radio Popular (folk music - from various romanian regions)
http://live.radiopopular.ro:8888/listen.pls

Radio Favorit FM (folk music - from various romanian regions)
http://193.226.163.57:8001/listen.pls

Radio Hit Etno (folk music - from various romanian regions)
http://radiohit-etno.no-ip.org:8585/listen.pls

Nunta.md (folk music from Republic of Moldova)
http://nuntamd.com:9098/listen.pls

Radio No Limit Etno (folk music - from various romanian regions)
http://etno-popular.radionolimit.ro:8000/listen.pls

============================================

TV STATIONS

Antena 1 (general purpose tv station - Bucharest) - all movies have romanian subtitles
mms://81.196.2.232/pp1 (copy the URL, then open with Windows Media Player, KMPlayer, etc.)

Antena 3 (news tv station - Bucharest)
http://www.antena3.ro/live.php

Realitatea TV (news tv station - Bucharest)
http://www.realitatea.net (clicking on "LiveTV" in the upper left corner of the page will play the TV station in a new window)

If it's Serbian, please write in Latin what he was saying. But if it's Russian, please use this diagram for Cyrillic (I have no intention to change your alphabet, I just wish this is the standard way to transliterate Russian):

Hard Vowels (Latin transliteration = Cyrillic mode)

a = а
e = э (even when it's in the middle or final position)
y = ы
o = о
u = у

Soft vowels (use the ia, ie, io, iu only when the consonant before the vowel is softened, otherwise, if the soft vowel is initial or if a jer/tviordy znak goes in between the consonant and the soft vowel, use ja, je, jo, ju.)

ja/ia = я
je/ie = е
i = и
jo/io = ё (on some of the stressed je/ie), otherwise ьо, ио, йо
ju/iu = ю

Soft consonants(all used on word end)

ć = ть
đ = дь
ś = сь
ź = зь
l = ль
ń = нь
' = ь
j = й

Hard consonants (all with the "always hard" will always beside y instead of i)

b = б
c = ц (always hard)
č = (soft in Russian but always hard in usage)
d = д
dž = дж (always hard)
f = ф
g = г
ch = х
k = к
ł = л (always hard)
m = м
n = н
p = п
r = р
s = с
š = ш (always hard)
šč = щ (soft in Russian but always hard in usage)
t = т
v = в
z = з
ž = ж (always hard)

I mean, please write what the Slavic salesman said in the Ford Ad Campaign in Portuguese/Slavic language.

Is it me or does the intonation sound Russian?

I forget the following in hard consonants:

č = ч (soft in Russian but always hard in usage)