Spain's Split?

MrMarcello

Sporting, why do you continually use this phrase "like people speaking Canadian?"

Canadian is not a language...it's a nationality. No more comparisons please. Spanish is a language. It's the official language of Mexico for instance. You continually sit here and make yourself out the fool when you say Spanish is not a language. It is a language and the official language in many countries. In the US, Spanish is a language. In South America, Spanish is a language. It is a language use on every continent and is considered a universal language (like English and French).

Sporting FC Fan

"Castilian is the official nationwide language of Spain"

Source: CIA country fact files.

The word "Spanish" is an incorrect/erroneous byname for the real name of the language. That is, the Castillian language.

Like I said, the word "Spanish is indeed refered to as being the national language of many countries in South America (excluding Brazil, Surinam and Guyana?), central America, Mexico and Spain itself. But the fact remains, it's just a historical mistake that was made popular by Castillian authors during the renaissance.

Most people don't even know that Castillian (incorrectly known as Spanish) was a dialect of Portuguese-Galician. However this is a fact supported by the Britannica. Some might not like it that Castillian and therefore Spanish partly derives from Portuguese by that's life and it's the truth.

Just because it's popularily known as "Spanish" doesn't mean it's correct.

If 500 years from now the term "Canadian language" becomes popular around the world it is still either the English language or the French language that the people of Canada are speaking. That's fact.

Sporting FC Fan

You see, Castillians or pro-Castillians fool people around the world by saying they speak "Spanish".

In Spain itself they don't do this because no one is really fooled by their trick. In Spain they say he speaks Castilian, I speak Catalonian or she speaks Basque. A Spaniard from the Basque area saying to a Castillian from the Castile/Madrid area he or she speaks Spanish would be laughed at till the cows came home.

That's why Castillians or pro-Castillians in Spain say they speak Castillian but when it comes to unsuspecting foreigners they say they speak Spanish.

That's why Weastdevil asked me if I understood Castillian. Had he said Spanish, he knows that I know that "Spanish" has no real meaning when it comes to language and that it could be either Galician, Catalonian, Basque or Castillian.

With the excetion to Galician (explained in previous posts), all very different languages that we Portuguese don't really understand.

Then one of their comebacks is to say Spanish is a dialect of Castillian or that Castillian is a dialect of Spanish. Complete rubbish!

If anything Castillian WAS a dialect of Portuguese but can NO LONGER be considered one due to the heavy influence of Arab words.

Plechazunga

FFS no I don't! If you read my posts I say time and again that it was the spoken language at Rome, then spread to the provinces where it DIVERSIFIED.

Both claims are correct, yours and 'other people's' - they're not mutually exclusive. The Romance languages DO derive from VL, AND contain native words. But the Romance languages, including Portuguese as far as I know, are at least 75-80% Latin-based.

Come on, do me the honour of READING my posts - I know they're dull but it's hard to have a discussion when you don't. I AGREED that 'caballus' came from Celtic - though it was still probably through Latin that it made it into the Romance languages, as you can tell from the forms of the words in the Romance languages, which obey the standard rules of sound-change from Latin. I need to get to a library to check up on this one, but I suspect it's of Gaulish rather than Lusitanian origin.

This was my point exactly.

No, if you read the passage you yourself quoted, you'll see that VL varied from place to place according to indigenous influence. the number of Lusitanian words entering the local language and then being transported around the empire will be vanishingly small.

Yes I have you tool! You can't read! I've addressed it specifically at least twice.

I perhaps incorrectly assumed you were aware that most European languages evolved from a common root, referred to a Proto-Indo-European. This was the ancestor of among others the Hellenic, Italic, Germanic and Celtic languages. It also includes Lusitanian, the classification of which is tricky as the records of the language are so sketchy. (However, most linguists regard it as NOT CELTIC, based on certain phonological features like the fact that the Celtic languages have lost the Indo-European 'p', whereas Lusitanian preserves it. As you say, they are sister-languages).

Now the root *taur-, 'bull', is postulated in PIE as it has very clear examples in several of the daughter-languages, including Greek tauros, Latin taurus, and from what you say Lusitanian tourom. These languages got the word INDEPENDENTLY. This is a far more economical explanation of the form in Latin than claiming that it developed from Lusitanian and just happened to evolve into a form almost identical to the original PIE, from which the Lus. had changed somewhat.

To use an analogy from another type of evolution, it's like you're claiming that because both gorillas and orang-utans have thumbs, the oran-utans therefore got them from the gorillas - not the case, they both got them from a common ancestor.

As I already said, it may be that the modern Portuguese was influenced by BOTH taurus and tourom - only a specialist in Portuguese could tell us. What's certain is that the Latin didn't come from the Lusitanian.

Here you may be right. The Romans were very keen on etymological speculations, but they were almost always wrong, as I think is the case with the 'Ceres' link. The Celtic word was 'curmi', probably related to Latin 'cremor', 'broth'. The Celtic form changed to 'curvi' , which is where the modern Spanish, Portuguese etc. come from. However, I can't find any evidence that this change occurred in Iberia first - the only article I've found on it suggests that 'curvi' is first found in Britain and Northern Gaul. But I may be wrong on that as i haven't had a chance to check it out properly.

As you say it is a question of degree. Portuguese gets far more of its vocabulary, syntax and grammar from Latin than from Lusitanian. No language comes purely from another, but comparative linguists use 'derive' to refer to the major source - that's why it would be wrong to say Yiddish DERIVES from Hebrew, or Old French or Italian, or Romanian or any of the other languages it has borrowed from. No doubt there's the odd Swahili word in Portuguese, but it would be quite wrong to say Portuguese derives from Swahili. Now, as it is a question of degree, it is a bit less wrong to say 'Portuguese derives from Latin and the indigenous languages spoken before colonisation', but to say 'it derives from Lusitanian' is misleading to say the least.

This is where YOU are playing with the meaning of words, a charge which I resent as I've tried to be clear and unbiased throughout the thread, admitting where I am not certain of something etc. You however change your tune constantly without acknowledging it: e.g. you originally claimed Lusitanian was Celtic, you claimed 'equus' and 'porcus' were borrowed from outside Latin, and you've changed your tune over the definition of Vulgar Latin too.

Unlike you I am looking at the matter dispassionately, whereas your judgements seem to be clouded by some political issues regarding modern Spanish.

--------------

That is more or less correct (though it fails to mention a massively important source, the plays of Plautus and Terence and the Satyricon of Petronius).

What are you on about? It mentions that Italian grammar is SIMILAR to Spanish (as you'd expect since they both derived from Latin), and that the grammar of VL is IN PART RECONSTRUCTED from Romance languages - not DERIVED from them. The effects of eg Lusitanian grammar on the VL spoken in Rome, or indeed spoken anywhere in the Empire apart from Iberia, are minimal or probably nil.

Plechazunga

Quote me one erroneous statement of mine in this thread.

Your faith in the EB is endearing. Excellent reference book though it is, its virtue lies in general overviews. We are told at GCSE level - that's at 16 - NEVER to quote from it in academic work as it is not reliable on many technical points. So be proud of yourself for quoting an encyclopaedia if you like - congratulations mate. My 'opinions' are based on years of studying Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Ancient History and Comparative Linguistics at university. Yours seem to be based on a desire to convince us that Portugal is a great nation with a great history (true, of course), and came out on top against the Romans (utter bollocks, of course). God I hate nationalism, it turns every argument to shit. first we had The King claiming India was the origin of everything, and now this chump.

You seem to be desperate to increase our respect for modern Portugal by convincing us of the absurd theses that VL came from Lusitanian and there's no such thing as Spanish. If you want to educate yourself, rather than embarrass yourself, here are some references, starting with the classic, Hans Heinrich Hock's Language history, language change and language relationship.
Other good texts are
R. L. Trask, Historical linguistics, 1996
Andrew Sihler, Language history: An introduction, 2000
David Lightfoot, The development of language: Acquisition, change and evolution, 1999
Philip Baldi An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages. Southern Illinois University Press. (1983)
Comrie, Bernard & Matthews, Stephen & Polinsky, Maria (eds.) 1997, The atlas of languages: The origin and development of languages throughout the world.

Since you like encyclopaedias, you might find a little more accuracy in
Crystal, David, 1997. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language.

WeasteDevil

Ok, let us try and take you up on some of this. And I'll use various sources to support my views, and will quote them if asked to do so.

The name of Castillian, and later on Spanish, really emerges from the Reconquest of Spain from the Moors by the Christians and it became the bridge of communication between the different peoples of the peninsula. It was used in the castles from which it received its name. Castillian was declared the official language of Spain by Philip V in 1714. Spanish became the name frequently used by the linguists and authors of the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Spanish Royal Academy preferred to use Castillian until the 1925 edition of its Dictionary, when it adopted the name of Spanish. The Real Academia Española (The Royal Spanish Academy) located in Madrid, is entrusted with "purifying, clarifying and giving splendor" to the language, in close contact with other Latin American academies, and mitigating the problems arising from the use of a language spoken in such a large geographic expanse. Its members are recruited from among the most prestigious literary creators and erudites.

So, as you can see, the word "Spanish" is valid in both Spain and elsewhere as a word to describe Castellano. To say that it is an invention or somehow false is incorrect. Language is not static, and different terms come an go. The word "Spanish" as an alternative name for Castellano is therefore a valid one.

Which leads me on to another part of what you say.

Well, it is not rubbish when considering that Castellano (Castilian) has dialects within itself. One of these is correctly known as Castellano, or Castilian, being the dialect of the language spoken in Castilla, or Castile.

Looking at it, Spanish has the following dialects: Andalusian, Murcian, Aragonese, Navarrese, Castilian, Leonese, Canary, American (of which there are more than one). The Aragonese dialect of Spanish is different from the Aragonese language, and Leonese may have limited inherent intelligibility with Spanish, and may be extinct, but was highly similar to Asturian.

Looking at its lexicon, Castilian has an 89% lexical similarity with Portuguese, 85% with Catalan, 82% with Italian, 76% with Sardinian, 75% with French, 74% with Rheto-Romance, and 71% with Rumanian. This point takes me on to your next.

Well, it seems to me that modern Portuguese is not the father of any language, but the decendent of one. Namely old Gallego, which in itself is definitely not the ancestor of modern Castellano.

Continental and Penninsular Portuguese are both descended from a common Portuguese spoken a few hundred years ago in the Western part of the Iberian Penninsula. But over the centuries the two have diverged, just as American English and British English and just as European French and Louisiana French have diverged. In the 1200s or so, what was to become Portuguese was the dialect of Galician spoken in the county of Portugal. And the Iberian Pennensula had several dialects of what had been the Iberian variety of Colloquial Latin. But after Portugal's Independence from Galicia, Galician fell more and more under the influence of another of these Colloquial Latin dialects, Castillian. And Gallician and Portuguese began diverging more and more. So, Modern Galician and Brazilian and Penninsular Portuguese are all coeval, of the same age, with neither seriously influencing the other, and definately not influencing modern Spanish (which has influenced modern Galician). All the languages descended from Colloquial Latin (formerly called "Vulgar, meaning "Commo", Latin) are coeval. So Portuguese, Spanish, French, Catalan, Sardinian, the various dialects of Italian, RhaetoRomansch, and Rumanian are all the same age. They all share common descent from their "mother", Colloquial Latin. Classical Latin was their mother's Spinster Aunt, who died without any "children". But we know alot about it because so many people wrote using it.

Finally, coming back to the Portuguese not really understanding other "different" languages other that Galician. It seems to me that the Portugues understand Spanish far more than Galician.

The two languages of Portuguese and Gallego, which once were a form of popular Latin during the Roman conquest, have split apart to such an extent in pronunciation, especially in intonation, that comprehension for the Portuguese is often more difficult than in Castilian. When the Portuguese go to Galicia to do business, to go shopping, or for tourism, they prefer either to speak Portuguese or to try to speak in Castilian. Their knowledge of Galego is so restricted, or non-existent, that the outcome would be a disaster. There is a myth of mutual intelligibility between the two languages; some even go so far as to say that Galego is Portuguese, but any observation of actual language practices will quickly dispel this illusion.

The linguistic reality of Galicia (Galiza in Galego and European Portuguese but Galicia in Castillian and in Brazilian Portuguese) is that the spoken and written Gallego has become very "Castilianized" as a natural result of centuries of exposure to Castilian in the schools, press, radio, and television. A Portuguese observer, without knowledge of linguistics, would have a hard time distinguishing when a Galician was speaking Gallego or when he was speaking Castellano, such is the mixture of the two. It is only when he sees the written form that the difference becomes apparent. This "Castilianizacion" of the language is a sore spot for some educated Galegos. José Luis Valente writes in a letter to Portal Galego da Lingua on 27 August 2003:

"What register do we offer when we go to Portugal speaking Galego-Portugûes? Well, often it is such a Castillianized register that instead of informing about our reality, it creates confusion for the Portuguese citizen about the language of his Galego visitor. It is such a Castillianized Galego in phonetics and often in syntax and lexicon that the Portuguese thinks he is dealing with a Spaniard who is trying to speak Portuguese. This idea only conforms his own prejudice that Galicia is a region of Spain where people speak something, which could be Portuguese-Spanish or Mirandês. The natural courtesy and politeness (often excessive) of our brothers from the South leads them to try to speak Castillian. In other words, our attitude often does not inform, but confuses the Portuguese citizen about the Galego linguistic reality."

Catarina, another Portuguese, writes:

"I am Portuguese, born and bred in Lisbon, but as long as I remember I have gone several times a year to Galicia since my parents love the region and have friends there. I have always been unsure when approaching Galegos because many of them, perhaps the majority, don't like us to speak Portuguese with them. Just last month I went into a drug store in Vigo where three shop assistants were talking. I saw that they were speaking in Galego so I spoke to one of them in Portuguese. She answered in Castillian. I have a lot of these examples, but also have some in which people spoke to me in Galego. At first I was afraid but now I always speak in Portuguese. (From Portal Galego da Lingua)"

To combat this interference of Castilian in Galego some intellectuals have even adopted their own spelling system to bring Galego closer to Portuguese. This group, probably a minority in Galicia today, would like to see Galicia become independent, or form a new nation with either Portugal or the northern region of Portugal, and the language rid of as many Castillian words as possibile. Two sites espousing these ideas are Lusografia and Portal Galego da Lingua. These are people like Sporting, who love nothing more to create racial and cultural tension between people that otherwise would never have any issue with such things.

A simple likely tree for you (all I could find):

WeasteDevil

The Celtic word for beer was curmi, which seems to be linked to a word that occurs in Latin, cremor, meaning a thick broth (which is just what a barley mash is), itself linked to cremo, to burn or boil (as in cremate), and an old Slavonic word krma, meaning nourishment or food. Around the first century of the Christian era a pronunciation change took place in Britain and among the mainland Gauls in which m became v, so that the word for ale changed from curmi to something closer to corvi or corev. In medieval Welsh the word was spelt cwrwf (single f is pronounced v in Welsh), today altered to cwrw, while in Cornish it became coref or correff (and coreff in Breton).

It is from this late Celtic word that the Latin for beer, cervisia or cervesia (several spellings exist) is derived, and it is from the Latin, of course, that Spanish gets the word cerveza, meaning beer, and the Portugese get cerveja. In French cervoise means (unhopped) ale.

The Romans, being chauvinists, and believing all other languages were merely debased versions of their own, tried incorrectly to derive cervisia from Ceres, the harvest goddess.

Plechazunga

There we go...how reliable a source though?

WeasteDevil

Well, these things are never totally reliable are they? It always comes down to the subjective opinion and interpretation of the researcher/writer. Does our word "Beer" come from the Latin Biber (Modern Spanish - Beber) meaning "To Drink", or from elsewhere? And why did the Germanics take a different Latin stem for the word to the Iberians?

kf

Feckin intellectual punch up this. Why don't you all meet up somewhere and kick the shit out of each other properly? I'll hold yer coats.

Plechazunga

True...though the 'why' question is usually even more subjective. Points of actual reconstruction can be more or less certain. For example, the Greek for 'sister' is 'adelphe', which just means 'same womb', but by looking at 'soror' in latin and 'shvastra' in Sanskrit and stuff, they reconstructed how it would have looked if it had survived in Greek, and came up with something like 'hēa', can't quite remember exactly, but then they found it in an old text, meaning something like 'clanswoman'. That's a pretty good vindication of reconstructive method, at least in the case of Greek.

When it comes to 'why did this word become standard and not that,' though, it's more or less guesswork IMO.

Plechazunga

Well me and Weaste agree with each other, which is why Sporting's getting such a hiding. Occasionally Wibs turns up and gives him a dig too

kf

Yeah, I gathered that. I think I'm learning something about comparative linguistics, not a topic I've studied and a bit like hard work on a Friday afternoon but interesting none the less, even if my brain hurts a bit... I reckon Sporting would take a bit of a hiding in the fisticuffs too. Even if he brings some of his Castillian "friends"!

Plechazunga

yeah it's very interesting for a while, it's all very neat the way it works and you get these great facts, eg the word 'cynical' is the same root as the words 'canine' and 'hound'! Works like this:

PIE something like 'kunos', in Greek becomes 'kuon', in Latin 'canis', in Germanic 'cunds'. there was a bunch of nutty Greek philosophers called 'kunikos' which means 'doglike', cos their attacks were so biting, and the Romans took on the word and wrote it as 'cynicus', from which we get 'cynical'. Meanwhile in Germanic there was a great sound shift, and by a regular process called Grimm's Law all the 'c's turned into 'h's, which is why 'cunds' became 'hunds' and then 'hound' (and also why Latin 'cannabis' is English 'hemp', and all those 'qu-' words in Romance languages like 'quand' and 'qui' start 'wh-' in English - they were originally 'kw-', then 'hw-', then 'wh-').

Another good one is that 'womb' and 'dolphin' are from the same root.

Then after a couple of years it gets fucking tedious.

kennyj

Just curious - if they don't speak Spanish in Spain, what language do they speak in France?

WeasteDevil

kf

Like French chateau mutates directly into castle. The -eau suffix goes to -le in lots of words. The circumflex over the a in chateau (couldn't be arsed finding the character set but you know it's there!) indicates an s has been dropped after the a and the ch hardnens to c. So it's the same word. So I'm told anyway.

WeasteDevil

Breton, Catalan, Basque, Picard, Walloon, Norman, Provencal, and summat else that should not be called French.... Parisian it is then.

WeasteDevil

I notice on that tree I posted, the absense of Finnish, Hungarian, and Basque. Poor bastards don't know where they came from. Alien they are!

Plechazunga

Not sure how that happened...I think maybe 'castle' came from Latin, cos the 'l' at the end also appears in Spanish I think, so maybe the French is the one that changed...it's very common in languages for an 'l' sound to turn into 'w' - like Cockney "Fuckin' 'ew", and you know that Polish team that's spelt 'lodz' but pronounced with a 'W'. Lech Walesa too...the Romans definitely used to do it, so maybe something like 'castel' turned into 'castew' in French and eventually 'chasteau'.

WeasteDevil

It does, "Castillo".

Also how the town I live in got it's name "Castello", although the castle has long gone.

WeasteDevil

Although, wasn't the Latin "Turris", I suppose Turret, or tower maybe? "Torre" in Spanish?

Plechazunga

'Castello' must've come from Lusitanian then, like everything else

WeasteDevil

Of course, the Latin for fort! "Castellum".

Why many old Roman fortified towns in England still have the ending "Caster", or "Cester", etc.

Plechazunga

I thought that was from 'castra'?

WeasteDevil

Yes, castrum also!

Plechazunga

Which is 'Manchester' from?

WeasteDevil

Strange the Saxons continued to use the Latin word and not introduce their own.

We would now be "Manburg United".

WeasteDevil

One or the other, and a tit shaped hill!

Plechazunga

that's quite a macho name. So what did the Romans call it?

WeasteDevil

Mamuciam United!

Agricola called it that, and then went on to become emperor of all Rome. We were founded by a great man.

WeasteDevil

Saxons first called us Mamecaestre United, and then Manceastre United.

giggzy

I thought it was 'Mancunia'?

WeasteDevil

I think that's a modern invention, sort of makes it sound bigger than what it was doesn't it? Remember, Manchester is an upstart, and the fort was only built there because of the breast shaped hill. The main encampment was actually in Salford, which became the Royal Manor, and then most of South Lancashire in the form of the Salford Hundred (which Manchester was part).

Bloody upstart Mancs.

Plechazunga

Riiiight...and I suppose modern English derives from Salfordian, doesn't it...

kin nationalists

WeasteDevil

We were the beautiful part, thus the Romans naming us "Willows", and the Mancs "Tits". Think about it!

Plechazunga

Are you saying willows are more beautiful than tits?

Pervert!

WeasteDevil

It depends on what you are into.

Plechazunga

Yeah...tits myself. Willows are for John Arlott, Wordsworth and poofters!

Anyway, explain...what did the Romans call Salford and Manc?

WeasteDevil

Salford after Willows: Salix
Manchester after Tits: Mammies

Dont think there were many locals around at that time though.