Little words in English of foreign origin

Joey
««Gringo have you been to O Porto or Braga? I go to both places every once and a while.
Yes they both belong to the north but don't sound quite the same.
I agree that in O Porto does only change there v's for b's, but in Braga they sometimes can make a real ness up of things chnging v's for b's and b's for v's. »

Yes.
I know they do not sound the same. I never spoke with anyone in Braga that changes b's for v's as in "vevé" , "saver" or "vou jogar vola".


I read that in the begining of the century they used to speak either way b´s or v´s, which makes you absolutelly right, or... you spoke with someone very old. ;)

They mixed b's and v's that same way in Arcos de Valdevez probably some still do.

Have you heard "matata" instead of "batata" in the north?

<<but if you had say, a perfect American or English accent, people would look at you funny if you transposed those two sounds! >>

Well, that's something that I don't need to worry about! LOL!

Thank you for the explanations.

(I read that in the begining of the century they used to speak either way b´s or v´s, which makes you absolutelly right, or... you spoke with someone very old. ;))

Now it's my turn to pat you on the back, yes they were not very old people but not young either.I think they were between 40 and 60.

I am sure you can imagine my surprise when I first heard them. I mean vevé
how strange does that sound.lol

("vou jogar vola".) in this case they would say 'bou jogar bola' but would say 'bou travalhar e depois ber um jogo de bola'.
It's as if they are tring to change but don't know when they should use the b's or v's.

They also still used tearms like 'vos irais' and 'vos ides' this wasn't to strange as I had meet a person from Mirandela that used it as well but didn't have this whole b's v's mix up.

(Have you heard "matata" instead of "batata" in the north?) No but I have heard semeilha from Madeira and use batata for batata doce.

By the way,

In Mexico at school we ARE taught about the difference, and we even have to practice the right pronountiation.... the fact that most of us don't care about it anymore once we turn 11 years old is a separate matter... hehe.

But funny thing that in Spain, the craddle of our language, they don't even know that there is a difference, and they insist that they are taught to pronounce them just the same. From what I have been gathering after asking many Spaniards, I am really astounded. Any Spaniard out there which can reinforce or speak against my comment?

Brennus - very interesting what you said about Irish - Albanian has exactly the same word to form questions, so

Flisni shqip = [you] speak Albanian.

A flisni shqip = Do [you] speak Albanian?

I'm interested in finding any other similarities between Celtic languages and Albanian as they are both comparitively old indo-european languages which probably split fropm a proto language at around the same epoch.
Another example is breg/brigje meaning hill, which. according to a friende is almost identical in scottish gaelic..

<<In Mexico at school we ARE taught about the difference, and we even have to practice the right pronountiation.... the fact that most of us don't care about it anymore once we turn 11 years old is a separate matter... hehe.>>

Hehe, quite right.

<<In Mexico at school we ARE taught about the difference, and we even have to practice the right pronountiation..>>

Really ? Why Sergio ? What is the reason ?

I'm picturing little Mexican kids practicing their V's and B's now ... how cute!

I remember a friend of my mother's mentioning that when she lived in Lesotho, which has speakers of a click language -- Khoisan, I think-- the clicks are actually hard for small children to make (and distinguish between) and she would pass the local school, she would hear classes of small children all valiantly struggling to make the different click sounds in unison.

I think for English-speaking kids, the difficult sounds to distinguish between are B and P, but I could be wrong about that. V never seemed like a tough one, to me.

And then there's the spelling ... but we won't get into that!

There are many words of Spanish origin here is a list of only some of the many thousands of English words of Spanish origin:

http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-english-words-of-spanish-origin

Uriel : « Regarding: "Uriel : peut-être parce que la nature (humaine) a horreur du vide ?" -- think we stole our phrase "Nature abhors a vacuum" from our favorite stepsister? ;p »
Ha ha ha !!! Effectivement... ;)


Uriel : « Ummm ... if I understand you correctly, greg, I'm not sure that just being followed by a T renders the V in "have to" into an F. »
Pienso el mismo que tu. Le schéma [v]—>[f] (assourdissement = désonorisation = dévoisement = dévocalisation) ne semble pas être uniquement conditionné par des considérations phonologiques. Exemple : le schéma [hævtʰu:(XXX)]—>[hæftə(XXX)] pourrait-il fonctionner dans un environnement tel que <have two (XXX)> ? Mon intuition est que non — mais je ne suis pas un anglophone maternel. Mon intuition est que [v]—>[f] (et "accessoirement" : [tʰu:]—>[tə]) ne fonctionne pas avec <have two (XXX)> parce que, comme tu l'indiquais justement, <to have> fonctionne comme un verbe lexical dont le sémantisme est la {possession} (comme dans <I have two dogs>) et non comme un verbe modal (comme dans <I have to wash the car>).

Uriel : « It is perfectly natural for me to say "I HAVE two dogs" and give the V its full value, while the very similar-sounding, and similarly-stressed sentence, "I HAVE to go" would always come out as "I HAFF to go." »
Absolument !
Supposons une absurdité : le verbe anglais *<to dogz> existe (to dogz — dogzed — have dogzed). Sa signification n'est pas importante ici. Supposons maintenant que tu prononces : [a ̯Ihæftədɒgz]. Je pense que les anglophones comprendraient <I have to dogz> {~ I must dogz} et non pas <I have two dogs> {je possède deux chiens}. Si ma supposition est juste (et les anglophones maternels peuvent la confirmer ou l'infirmer), alors le schéma phonétique de transformation [v]—>[f] est conditionné par le sémantisme de <to have (to)> : verbe lexical {possession} ou auxiliaire de modalité {obligation}.

It could be. Although we seem to get by with plenty of other confusing homonyms that don't get the same treatment.

I would almost wonder if the two "haves" didn't originally come from two different root words and just happened to experience a convergence in spelling (which, in English, doesn't mean much! ;p), but I know Spanish has the same construction (tener que), so I'm assuming that it must simply be a typical European construction, and that they indeed are the same "have".

Where are our linguistics majors when we need em?

Hi Aldvs,

Well, I think that the difference between "V" and "B" is taught, because the Spanish in Mexico is quite conservative, and it reflects that THERE WAS a difference in the pronountiation between both letters. I was surprised when you wrote that you couldn't imagine the difference, because for me it was evidence since I was in the kindergarten!! (seriously, we learnt this from the very moment we learnt the alphabeth, as the "B de Burro" and "V de Vaca"). We had to repeat the difference until it was pronounced right. But then, and totally inconsistently with this learning, we grew up and nobody took care about it, neither the teachers nor the pupils, and this difference remains as something that you know but never use!!!!. I think the reason of that is the tendency to simplification which I was talking about in another thread. If it has once started to be accepted to pronounce both letters as the same, whitout beeing this a problem for human comunication, then it will expand to the point of becoming a written rule which nobody follows.

This has happened in a lot of languages to a much bigger extents, where the ortography today is not consistent at all with the pronountiation (I am not talking about B vs. V anymore), like English, French and Danish.

>I'm picturing little Mexican kids practicing their V's and B's now ... how cute!
Well, for us it was as normal as it is for English speaker children could be learning the difference between saying "ship and sheep"... By the way, B and V was not especially tough to learn. I was just surprised of learning that for most Spanish speakers, this difference doesn't even exist!!!

On the other hand, I was just so surprised after learning that in Spanish "LL" and "Y" used to be a different sound, even in initial position.
Original Spanish "LL" was pronounced a bit like English "million", or Italian "aGLIo"... and in some zones of Spain there are still people who speak this way, I have listened them myself!!!... I think this was a phonetic element shared among all the Romance languages before, but nowadays lost in some of them.

Greg, comment on pronounce cette "LL" en français aujourdhui?
ville, mouiller, vieille, etc...? tu as des explications historiques que poussent nous en donner de plus information?

When I took French, LL could go both ways, depending on the word -- Y in words like "fille" and L in words like "mademoiselle".

Greg?

Sergio,

<ville> [vil(ə)]
<mouiller> [muje]
<vieille> [vjɛj(ə)]
<million> [milj~ɔ] — plus rarement [mij~ɔ]
<mille> [mil(ə)]

Orolatin impérial <macula> [makula] —> orolatin postimpérial de Gaule septentrionale [majʎa]¹ —> Fr <maille> [maj(ə)]
¹[ʎ] comme dans It <famiglia> [famiʎa]

Orolatin classique <papilione(m)> [papilione]/[papiljone] —> orolatin postimpérial de Gaule sept. [papelone]/[pabelone]/[paβelone]/[pavelone] —> orolatin tardif de Gaule sept. [pavelou̯n(e)] —> AF (XIIe s.) [pavelou̯~n] [paveloo̯~n] [pavelo̯~n] [pavilo̯~n] —> AF (XIIIe s.) [pavilo̯~n] [pavijo̯~n] —> MF (XVIe s.) [pavilɔ̯~n] [pavijɔ̯~n] —> Fr <pavillon> [pavijɔ~]

Orolatin classique <mirabilia> [mirabilia]/[mirabilja] —> orolatin postimpérial de Gaule sept. [merabilja]/[meraβilja]/[meraβela]/[meravela] —> orolatin tardif de Gaule sept. [meravelə]/[merəvelə] —> AF (Xe s.) [mervelə] —> AF (XIe s.) [mervɛlə] —> AF (XIIe s.) [mɛrvɛlə] —> AF (XIIIe s.) [mɛrvɛlə]/[mɛrvɛjə] —> MF (XVIe s.) [mɛrvɛl(ə)]/[mɛrvɛj(ə)] —> Fr <merveille> [mɛʁvɛj(ə)]

Uriel : « When I took French, LL could go both ways, depending on the word -- Y in words like "fille" and L in words like "mademoiselle". »



Oui, ça peut être très compliqué :

<fille> — [fij(ə)] (API) — [fij(@)] (X-Sampa)
<mademoiselle> — [mad(ə)mwazɛl(ə)] (API) — [mad(@)mwazEl(@)] (X-Sampa)




Et même encore plus compliqué :

<fille> — [fij(ə)] (API) — [fij(@)] (X-Sampa)
<ville> — [vil(ə)] (API) — [vil(@)] (X-Sampa)
<bille> — [bij(ə)] (API) — [bij(@)] (X-Sampa)
<mille> — [mil(ə)] (API) — [mil(@)] (X-Sampa)



Parfois seule l'étymologie (latine) justifie les aberrations apparentes.