musings on language

[jetaimerai]

I watched Cinema Paradiso tonight for my film class, and yeah, it's a great film. But the more interesting aspect to me was the fact that it was all in Italian, and not just that, but - the fact that, even though I've never studied Italian in my life, I was able to read it. xD;; Though there wasn't a lot TO read. Still, just listening to the

Comments

[arrowwhiskers]

Whoops...messed up the link in my original comment. *if you get a notification, ignore it, lol*

Anyway:
That's so awesome because I know exactly the feeling you're talking about. The sort of...different aura around you when everyone else is of a different culture and speaking a different language. It's -amazing-. :D I'm so glad that you're starting to like Spanish for Spanish, cause you'd said at some point that you hadn't really fallen for it yet, but it now sounds like you really actually have.

As for "how did French get this way", not to shamelessly pimp my own shit, but I wrote a paper in high school on how the different Romance languages developed, and I THINK it's pretty straightforward (and should be readable to people who don't know any of the languages mentioned, etc). It's here if you're interested.

[arrowwhiskers]

In total truth, having reread it, it doesn't actually explain why French is unique (because, gramatically speaking, French and SPanish are pretty close...perhaps closer than Italian is to either of them, or at least close in different ways). It does talk about why some of French is the way it is, though...like why French verbs need pronouns but Spanish ones don't.

As for why French (and Portuguese) are pronounced like mindfucks though...that I have no idea. I'm sure SOMEONE knows, though. Latin is awesome and its linguistic transformation is as well documented as one could hope for in a language so old.

[jetaimerai]

That aura is pretty awesome. :) And it just makes me feel sad for a lot of people who live here, because... most people don't really care? And so they're totally missing out.

And yeah, it's coming slowly, but surely. ♥ It takes time for love to develop, but I think that there is something amazing about every language that exists, with Spanish definitely included. :)

Awesome! I'll definitely read it when I have a little more time.

[xenoamorist]

If you're interested in a language that's really a mix between Spanish and French, you should give Catalán a test drive ;Db I don't know any of it, but from the few words and phrases I've seen, it looks very lovely. (That and Catalonia is a lovely place that I'd love to visit!)

[jetaimerai]

Yeah, I've checked out Catalan before. xD Mainly because I've fallen so in love with Barcelona it's almost ridiculous. It does seem like a cool langauge. :) Especially since I can read some of it already, hah!

[chrryblssmninja]

but I was able to pick up a few Italian vocabulary just because of my knowledge of both French and Spanish.
yeah, the same thing happens to me when I'm watching the Italian news broadcast we get here

I think Portuguese is more a mix of French and Spanish, but that's just me

aww cool you feeling contentment.

[jetaimerai]

Mainly the reason why I thought Italian and Spanish are so similar is because they SOUND so similar... I mean... really. LOL Whereas French (and Portuguese) are both off sounding completely different, lol.

[chrryblssmninja]

ah, I see.

to me, Italian has more of the hard consonants than Spanish does. And the speaking style is slightly different (which is why you can usually tell who's Argentinean)

random: have you seen my latest post about the Speed Racer movie trailer? I really don't know what to think.

[dharmavati]

So now I'm extremely interested in the development of these languages, and namely, in how the FUCK did French turn out so differently? Because really, Italian is overall more similar to Spanish, from what I could catch.

XD I just did a presentation on language trees and proto-language reconstruction and I used the Romance language tree to show my point. French, Spanish, and Portuguese diverged more recently (and so are actually much more closely related to each other) than these langauge did from Italian. As for the differences in French, that langauge seems to have just gone through a lot of mutations in phonology and morphology due to contact with other more Germanic languages (which Spanish and Portuguese speakers would not have eperienced as much). That's what I'm guessing. [/linguistic lesson] XD

[renaissanced]

Driveby question: So does this explain why German sounds like horrible zombie French? :O

[jetaimerai]

Hmm, well as I remarked above, I assumed that Italian and Spanish were the ones that were so similar because they SOUNDED so similar, but that's really interesting. And that theory about French contact with Germanic languages makes sense... though, even knowing that, I still can't help from LOLing over how different it sounds, haha.

[renaissanced]

Yeah, sometimes it's a bummer to be white. I personally have no connection to my heritage (half Irish, quarter Scottish, the rest is some English, French, Jewish, Native American mix), so besides like Christmas and such, I have nothing to celebrate. And then, white's the majority so I get no spiffy scholarships. :\

However, I do like my white people hair XD

If you do move, I fear we will get no more LJ posts in English x3

[jetaimerai]

Heritage? WHAT heritage?!?! That's usually my response to that question, lol. But I know that I'm half German, and half eurotrash, though mainly English and Polish. I have absolutely no connection to my heritage at all; to me, American is my ethnicity, LOL

Yeah, sometimes I wish I wasn't white just for the scholarships. LOL. That's kinda terrible though, oh well...

Ahaha, no, that's very unlikely. English is and always will be my native language, after all. But if I accumulate more friends who speak other languages, then I might post more often in other languages... for now, just English, pretty much. ;)

[renaissanced]

XD If/Once you do go abroad, will you lie and say you're British to get over that prejudice against the USA?

I admit to this as well. >__> I sometimes wonder when it's too much help, but then that gets into the different race cultures and the economy so I just stop. America's too big to handle all its problems, I think. Look at Russia and the crazy that's going on there, y'know?

I still &hearts the United States tho XD

[jetaimerai]

LOL no way! For one, I don't know much about Great Britain so I wouldn't be able to cover my ass for very long. Also, if I admit to being American, then I have the chance to show people that hey, not all Americans are ignorant idiots! haha And well, I also ♥ the US. :)