Spanish and Portuguese - discussion (train, rich, Norwegian, Dutch)
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There are even several hybrids between both languages, referred to as Portunhol.
This reminds me of when I was studying Italian in Italy. Several of the Spanish speakers and I would speak a medley of Italian and Spanish, because honestly after just a week there, our brains couldn't tease out Italian from Spanish because the two languages are just so damn similar. Lol.
I am just speaking for myself here, but French, Spanish, Italian, Galician, Catalan, Romanian and Portuguese feel so similar to me that in my mind I consider them dialects of each other. I speak French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese (or at least used to, I'm out of practice but still understand them). That said, I pull up the same "mental" vocabulary and grammar to speak any of the four. I know there are exceptions and false cognates, and I keep track of those as well, but for the most part, all four languages are just slight variations of each other to me. I'm not saying anything about how things should be, but I think the main reason the Romance languages are considered languages and the Chinese dialects are considered dialects is political, so for me the Romance languages are just like Chinese dialects, except the only difference is China is one country and Western Europe is made up of several countries. And while I'm at it, I may as well say that Slavic languages feel like dialects of each other to me too. It may even be that I've developed more of a bird's eye view of languages because I've studied languages that are radically different from each other, so the ones that are related seem almost pathetically too similar to be considered separate languages in my mind.
I don't share those views. Languages are not the same as dialects. Both terms are clearly defined in linguistics.
I can also read and understand French and Italian, but speaking it flawlessly and without accent is a completely different story. Any native speaker can tell after a few seconds if you speak a language as your mother tongue or not.
I don't share those views. Languages are not the same as dialects. Both terms are clearly defined in linguistics.
I can also read and understand French and Italian, but speaking it flawlessly and without accent is a completely different story. Any native speaker can tell after a few seconds if you speak a language as your mother tongue or not.
I know that the linguistic definition between language and dialect differs. However, even linguists admit that sometimes the only difference between languages and dialects is political, often with a different writing system to make them seem even more different. (Think Serbian and Croatian, Urdu and Hindi.) Politics has a way of exaggerating even the most minor differences in grammar and lexicon or downplaying even major differences in pronunciation and word choice. Any native speaker can also tell if you speak a certain dialect right away, and can tell if you're using another non-native dialect. That doesn't really prove whether a language is a dialect or not. Mutual intelligibility is probably the most prominant factor.
It doesn't really matter though, cause I was specifically talking about how my own brain grasps languages. Basically, whereas most people might pull up one word from their mental lexicon and think of the various ways it's pronounced in their country's dialects, I pull up one root and think of the different ways it's pronounced in the various countries' languages. It's like I put the one root through the Spanish or French or Portuguese or Italian "algorithm" and come out with the word. A prime example is viaje, voyage, viagem, and viaggio. Instead of thinking of them as different words, I think of them as one word, but where -aje is the Spanish ending, -age is the French one, -agem the Portuguese one and -aggio the Italian one. If I were learning Galician or Catalan, I would apply the analogous endings -axe and -atge to come up with viaxe and viatge. I might find sometimes that the word is erroneous or a false cognate, but I would probably find that most of the time the word matches both in form and meaning. I learned Portuguese that way, by putting Spanish words through "algorithms" I had created based on observing patterns, and about 90% of the time, it turned out the word I came up with was a real Portuguese word.
It's the same dynamic as thinking about dialectical differences. For example one dialect of Mandarin uses zher and nar for "here" and "there," but another dialect of the same language uses zheli and nali. The only difference here is that the change from nar to nali is dialectical, whereas the change from viaje to viagem is linguistic. However, I realize that for most people, the same word in two closely-related languages is stored as two separate roots, rather than the same root with different variations. So everything I say here is only in regards to how I think of closely-related languages (though I wouldn't be surprised if it was common among speakers of multiple closely-related languages).
Hope that helps explain that why the Romance and Slavic languages are more like dialects in my mind specifically.
Last edited by nimchimpsky; 08-16-2010 at 08:38 PM..
OK, I see what you mean. Still I would not use the word dialect in that case. Dialects is what you find within one language, for instance Andalusian or Mexican Spanish. Galician is very similar to Portuguese, there one might indeed speak of a dialect of Portuguese (or even the other way round) if it weren't for political reasons.
My brain works similar to yours. Probably because I had studied Latin for 7 years. So I also have those stems in my mind and I apply the systematic, consistent differences between those languages that have evolved over time. Interestingly that even extends far into certain Germanic languages (I am German) as German and English are more like hybrid languages between Germanic and Romance ones, especially regarding vocabulary. Both languages are littered with words of Latin origin, English also with those of Norman/French origin.
I know that the linguistic definition between language and dialect differs. However, even linguists admit that sometimes the only difference between languages and dialects is political, often with a different writing system to make them seem even more different. (Think Serbian and Croatian, Urdu and Hindi.) Politics has a way of exaggerating even the most minor differences in grammar and lexicon or downplaying even major differences in pronunciation and word choice. Any native speaker can also tell if you speak a certain dialect right away, and can tell if you're using another non-native dialect. That doesn't really prove whether a language is a dialect or not. Mutual intelligibility is probably the most prominant factor.
It doesn't really matter though, cause I was specifically talking about how my own brain grasps languages. Basically, whereas most people might pull up one word from their mental lexicon and think of the various ways it's pronounced in their country's dialects, I pull up one root and think of the different ways it's pronounced in the various countries' languages. It's like I put the one root through the Spanish or French or Portuguese or Italian "algorithm" and come out with the word. A prime example is viaje, voyage, viagem, and viaggio. Instead of thinking of them as different words, I think of them as one word, but where -aje is the Spanish ending, -age is the French one, -agem the Portuguese one and -aggio the Italian one. If I were learning Galician or Catalan, I would apply the analogous endings -axe and -atge to come up with viaxe and viatge. I might find sometimes that the word is erroneous or a false cognate, but I would probably find that most of the time the word matches both in form and meaning. I learned Portuguese that way, by putting Spanish words through "algorithms" I had created based on observing patterns, and about 90% of the time, it turned out the word I came up with was a real Portuguese word.
It's the same dynamic as thinking about dialectical differences. For example one dialect of Mandarin uses zher and nar for "here" and "there," but another dialect of the same language uses zheli and nali. The only difference here is that the change from nar to nali is dialectical, whereas the change from viaje to viagem is linguistic. However, I realize that for most people, the same word in two closely-related languages is stored as two separate roots, rather than the same root with different variations. So everything I say here is only in regards to how I think of closely-related languages (though I wouldn't be surprised if it was common among speakers of multiple closely-related languages).
Hope that helps explain that why the Romance and Slavic languages are more like dialects in my mind specifically.
I get where you're coming from, but I don't really agree. I think that because speakers of romance languages generally cannot understand speakers of other romance languages well, they aren't really dialects. I just think it's hard for us (or me at least) to grasp that there exist languages that are indeed languages that have a level of mutual intelligibility with other closely related languages (does that make sense? haha). English does not have any very close relatives as Spanish does (besides Scots, which barely anybody outside Britain knows about). Just because a Spanish speaker can speak with a Catalan speaker with each using their own language and both can be understood does not mean that they are dialects of the same language. Plus, all of these languages have very long histories of literature and use. I do, though, understand where your point comes from. I also believe that the southern Slavic languages are just dialects of one or a few languages (certainly Serbian, Croatian, etc). Also the same may be said of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
Also, the example you gave of Chinese dialects doesn't really correctly portray their situation. Of course nar (used in china in the north) and nali (used other places... i know Taiwan) are the same word in different dialects of Mandarin, but many Chinese people go much further than that. Many Chinese people (wrongly) say that Mandarin, Shanghainese, Cantonese, Taiwanese, etc are just dialects of the same "Chinese" language, which is very obviously a lie. These "dialects" could be described as just as different, if not more divergent from each other, as the Romance languages. So while there are dialects of Mandarin which are indeed dialects (in the case of nar vs. nali), Cantonese is decidedly an independent language.
Also, the example you gave of Chinese dialects doesn't really correctly portray their situation. Of course nar (used in china in the north) and nali (used other places... i know Taiwan) are the same word in different dialects of Mandarin, but many Chinese people go much further than that. Many Chinese people (wrongly) say that Mandarin, Shanghainese, Cantonese, Taiwanese, etc are just dialects of the same "Chinese" language, which is very obviously a lie. These "dialects" could be described as just as different, if not more divergent from each other, as the Romance languages. So while there are dialects of Mandarin which are indeed dialects (in the case of nar vs. nali), Cantonese is decidedly an independent language.
That's my point, though. Why is it that Chinese "dialects" are called dialects when they're just as different as the languages of Europe? It's largely political.
I know that the languages I listed are languages to most people for that reason. And I call them languages and not dialects for that reason. I'm not so out of touch with reality that I would insist on calling them dialects when discussing them with other people, lol.
I do think that the boundary between dialect and language is much fuzzier than we like to believe. It becomes glaringly obvious when we consider cases like Norwegian/Danish/Swedish, and even further, Serbian/Croatian, and Hindi/Urdu. But of course I would advocate that if Spanish and Portuguese are separate languages, then Cantonese and Mandarin and Wu and Yue, etc., should definitely be called separate languages cause they're even just as, or even more different than Spanish and Portuguese are from each other.
OK, I see what you mean. Still I would not use the word dialect in that case. Dialects is what you find within one language, for instance Andalusian or Mexican Spanish. Galician is very similar to Portuguese, there one might indeed speak of a dialect of Portuguese (or even the other way round) if it weren't for political reasons.
You might want to revise your definition of dialects...as an Andalusian and a Mexican can certainly have full conversations and read one anothers newspapers. Accents may differ as well the use of regional words... but there is only one spanish language...there are no spanish dialects.
The funny thing is there are some dialects that aren't mutually intelligible. Sometimes my mom has to talk in English with other people she meets that immigrated from her same country because they can't understand each other's native dialects. Just thought it was worth noting.
You might want to revise your definition of dialects...as an Andalusian and a Mexican can certainly have full conversations and read one anothers newspapers. Accents may differ as well the use of regional words... but there is only one spanish language...there are no spanish dialects.
I am just speaking for myself here, but French, Spanish, Italian, Galician, Catalan, Romanian and Portuguese feel so similar to me that in my mind I consider them dialects of each other. I speak French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese (or at least used to, I'm out of practice but still understand them). .
I disagree. The average person might understand a few words but it is still quite difficult to understand and to speak fluently.
Spanish is my mother tongue. I personally can understand Brazilian Portuguese but that's because I worked with them for a long time, so I was able to communicate with them and imitate their intonation (I had to otherwise they wouldn't understand crap, these people didn't speak Spanish at all) I also learned a few words but I can barely understand Portuguese from Portugal. All I hear is shhh and shhh. Italian I can understand a little but it is still quite different. French I don't understand at all.
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