| Archive for langcafe2.myfreeforum.org Come in and have your daily cup of languages! |
| Deborah |
New World accents vs. Old World accentsI remember some very heated "discussions" of this subject on antimoon.com between certain people who spoke Spanish, English, Portuguese or French and hated the way people from the other hemisphere spoke their language. Mostly there seemed to be people from Europe who thought speakers from the Americas sounded funny/ugly/stupid. But I know there are at least some people in the Americas who feel the same way about speakers of their languages in Europe.For example, my ex-boyfriend, who is Mexican, has a real aversion to Spanish with a Castilian accent. I saw him last night and he was making fun of my accent when I tried to speak Spanish with him. He told me I sounded like a Spaniard. (Except for the first 1/2 year of my studies, my teachers have been from Spain. However, I consciously pronounce C's and Z's like S's, since I'm surrounded by Latin Americans in San Francisco.) He advised me to try to avoid sounding like a Spaniard because he thinks it sounds effete and ugly. As for me, I enjoy all of the accents. As for which accent I eventually end up with, my so-called Spanish accent hasn't been ingrained in me from childhood, so I'm sure that I'll eventually take on the accent of the people I end up spending the most time with. Porthos, is this hatred of the Castilian accent something you've observed much, or is my ex an ex-ception? |
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| David |
Interesting topic. Deborah. I have hard many Latin Americans(there are MANY here in New Orleans) and I've heard a few Spaniards, and, pardon my , but I can't tell much of a difference. I did notice that the Spaniards speak with a lisp, which is pretty annoying, so my vote goes for the Latin Americans. | ||||||||
| Deborah |
Maybe you already know this, but they don't actually speak with a lisp; rather, the letters C and Z, when followed by I or E are pronounced like TH rather than like S. They don't simply substitute the TH sound for the S sound across the board. But it is primarily that sound that my ex really dislikes. It doesn't bother me at all. After all, I use that sound all the time. [Edit: There's some misinformation above -- Z is used before A, O and U to produce the TH sound.] |
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| Loic |
That explains why we pronounce Valencia as ValenTHia. Seriously, watching football can be such a culturally enriching experience. | ||||||||
| Loic |
With regards to the New World accent of Quebec French, I must say that some of their speech can be a little thick, if you know what I mean.
Of course, the native francophones would be able to provide a fairer assessment. |
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| Porthos |
No, it is very common. Most Latinos (Latin-Americans) I know, myself included, do not like the Castillian accent. The lisp feature is annoying, and most Mexicans would say that Spaniards don't enunciate. They don't. They speak incredibly fast. That being said, I don't mind their accent, other than the lisp thing, but I still like Mexican accents better. Cubans and Puerto Ricans change "y" and "ll" to "g" all the time and that just sounds ghetto to my ears. But there's more to the dislike of the accent than the accent itself. It's what it represents. Spain, and imperialism, and oppression. It should be noted however that not all regions of Spain have that lisp feature. |
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| Lazar |
In Spanish class last week we were watching the Spanish movie El Bola, and it struck me that I found it much harder to understand these Spanish actors than I do to understand the Mexican programming on Univision. I don't know if it was their rate of speech or their pronunciation, but my subjective impression is that the Castilian accent is less "clear" or comprehensible than, say, a Mexican accent. (I don't dislike it though.) | ||||||||
| Deborah |
I was aware of that, and I'm sure that's an element in the language likes and dislikes of people all over the world. After a lifetime of being told how ugly the English language is, especially the American version, I was surprised when quite a few Russians told me that they loved the sound of English, especially American English. This was around 1990, and I attributed it to the fact that the Russians who told me this also greatly admired the US. |
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| greg in noord-frankrijk |
A very good movie, in passing — don't you think ? 
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| fab |
I love spanish accent more than all the American versions- to me that "real spanish" (no ofense for non-spanish hispanophones!) Said that I like also those accents very much. | ||||||||
| Julian |
Re: New World accents vs. Old World accents
I've heard quite a few Latin American Spanish-speakers express similar sentiments. Not only do they find the ceseo in Castilian Spanish laughable and effeminate sounding, but they also found the harsh, guttural jota annoying.
 They also tend to mix up their r's, l's, and d's (Puelto Rico), drop consonants and entire syllables (los pescados -> lo pecao), and slur words together (de este -> dehte), which makes it difficult to figure out what they're saying.  My Mexican-American friends say it sounds sloppy and uneducated.
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| Uriel |
But some Mexicans drop their S's as well.
I'm with most of you -- can't stand the Castilian "lisp". I work with a Puerto Rican nurse and our Spanish-speaking patients just love her accent when she speaks Spanish, because to them it sounds exotic. That, and they're surprised that she speaks Spanish at all, since she's black -- so I guess she herself is exotic to them. |
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| Deborah |
Discussing this subject with my roommate, I wondered why people who speak English should find the Castilian Z and C so objectionable, since they themselves use that sound. She thought it might be because they're simply used to hearing those letters pronounced like S, so it sounds wrong to them.* I think she may be right. Even though I grew up hearing primarily Mexican accents, I was never actually surrounded by people who spoke Spanish, and when I first started hearing the Castilian accent, I didn't understand Spanish, so I wasn't really hearing words I recognized being pronounced differently. Hence, they all sound correct to me.
* She added that that was ironic, since Castilian is the correct way to speak Spanish. I attempted to disabuse her of that notion, of course! |
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| Porthos |
A lot of people wish to pretend as if Latin American Spanish is somehow "improper", or an "uneducated" form of the "real" Spanish spoken in Spain. Hearing that really gets annoying a lot of times, and most idiots actually believe it, and you will hear them repeat this crap after they heard it from someone else, over and over again. But that would be like saying that American-English is somehow inferior than British-English, or an "improper" version of it. LA Spanish is not pidgeon or creole, but merely Spanish with the unique accent of the region, along with minor slang differences unique to the region, which is exactly what you will find between American-English and British-English. | ||||||||
| Fredrik |
Well said, Porthos! If you count Icelandic and Faroese as "New World Norwegian" you even have an example of New World varieties that stayed way more "pure" than the Old World version. Unfortunately, nothing is known about how Old Norse developed on Greenland or if it thrived and developed on American soil, in Vinland the Good. | ||||||||
| Porthos |
Fredrik, what I want to know is how your ancestors managed to conquer large tracts of land in Europe, when their population and economic base was far smaller than that of their victims? | ||||||||
| Pauline |
Fredrik
I'm wondering, to which continent belong Greenland? I have understood that the Arctic is not a continent but Antarctic is one. So, then I would think to the American continent? But, it will have more connection with Europe -Iceland- Norway etc.. |
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| Fredrik |
Porthos wrote:
They were simply better! 
Seriously, their famous longships are probably an imortant clue. With those ships they were extrmely mobile, could penetrate deep into enemy land on the rivers (by rowing) and launch surprise attacks and withdraw quickly. Another thing that helped them cross big, open seas was their provisons: The famous Norwegian stockfish: wind-dryed un-salted cod that could be stored for a long time. Although there are tales of crazy, big berserks who were high on mushrooms and just slaughtered anything in their way, most of the Vikings were probably desperate for a new living, as the narrow fjord valleys of Norway were becoming increasingly over-populated. And the Vikings often married local women and thus gained a foothold in the societies they "visited". But remember that after snatching all the gold and raping all the women, the Vikings rarely remained in control of the land. The areas where they settled where either Viking cities where they were left alone (as in Ireland), areas explicitly granted to them (Normandy and the English Danelaw) or barren areas where few people lived before (Cumbria and Caithness). The only places where the Norse element remained prominent were the West Atlantic islands, where the Vikings were the first and only colonizers. |
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| Porthos |
Yes but how did they acquire those territories in the first place? They had to have defeated the native armies. Think of King Phillip's surrender to them, as well as their conquests in far away lands such as modern RUSsia. | ||||||||
| Fredrik |
Not at least Denmark, which is it part of politically. (But nice that you think of Norway in this connection, the Danes "forgot" to hand over the Norwegian colonies of Greenland, Iceland and the Faroese Islands when they gave us away to Sweden in 1814. And Shetland and the Orkneys they had mortgaged to the Scots as early as the 15th century.... So never entrust any "empire beneath the North Star" of yours to those Danes!)
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| Fredrik |
Good question without an obvious answer. But the Viking armies in the late Middle Age (10th and 11th centuries) must have been massive, with thousands of warriors. These big Viking armies were often very coordinated attacks led by Scandinavian kings. (For example, in 1014 Olav Haraldsson, later Norway's holy king, made his fleet tear down London Bridge .) And the Kings of Denmark were especially notorious for hosting massive attacks on England. The many earthen trelleborgs found in Denmark have been claimed to have been training garrisons for these massive armies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_ring_castles |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Which they're technically still entitled to claim back at any time! Actually, numerous attempts were made to do this by Denmark in the 17th and 18th centuries, although they were all dismissed by the Privy Council in Edinburgh. Occasionally, you hear of groups of people from Shetland and Orkney attempting to ask the Queen of Denmark to try and reclaim them again. |
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| Fredrik |
But they were mortgaged by the King of Denmark-Norway in his capacity of King of Norway. So it seems a bit strange that the current Danish monarch should have anything to do with it, even though it's theoretical. | ||||||||
| Lazar |
I agree; I thought it was compelling and very well done. |
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| Uriel |
Well, the arctic is not a continent because there is no actual land under the sea ice at the north pole; there is in Antarctica. I would say that Iceland is definitely geographically associated with the North American continent just by reason of proximity, but more culturally associated with Europe -- but then again, all of North and South America are also culturally associated with Europe, so why we make an exception for Iceland and call it "more" European, I don't know. |
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| Lazar |
In my mental world map I think of Greenland as part of North America, and Iceland as part of Europe. | ||||||||
| Shouga |
I don't think of them like this. I think of Greenland and Iceland being completely separate from both Europe and North America. |
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| Uriel |
Most continents have islands associated with them. Do you not think of Japan and the Phillippines as being part of Asia, or of Madagascar as being associated with Africa? | ||||||||
| Shouga |
Well, yes. But I don't think anyone I know thinks of Iceland as being European, as such, even though it is. Places like Greenland and Iceland automatically make me think of Antartica, not of places like Europe or North America. |
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| Loic |
I must say that I think of Iceland as European. They participate in the European Cup competitions, don't they? | ||||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
I suppose I often think of Iceland as European because it doesn't seem too far away — the halfway point between where I live and Iceland would be the north of Scotland. North America, on the other hand, always seems like a very long way away, although when I see maps of the world, I often notice that Newfoundland actually isn't so far away afterall. | ||||||||
| Fredrik |
And Iceland's traditional cultural outlook is Nordic! (Though they have always been rather international in outlook compared to other Nordic countries. Their great Nobel-winning author Halldór Laxness loved to mock Norwegians by showing how much more international and cultured Icelanders were compared to their allegedly superior Norwegian brothers. )
And if Iceland isn't European, what about the great sagas. Aren't they the first realistic novels in European literature? |
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| Shouga |
I do understand *now* that Iceland is very much part of Europe. However, only when I started to get interested in Iceland did I realise just how little I knew about the country; I didn't even know that they had their own language. Here, Iceland is very rarely mentioned, except for the odd, 'incorrect' statement that it's the home of Father Christmas, or something vague like that. Once I started to find out information about Iceland, and found out that it is part of Europe, did I fully realise how little I knew about the country. | ||||||||
| Pauline |
My question was about ----> *Greenland* Now you discuss only Iceland what is evidently european.
So, Greenland ? 
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| Fredrik |
Politically Greenland is European, as it's part of the Kingdom of Denmark (though not a part of the EU), but geographically and in terms of traditional culture I'd say it's American, as the Inuits came from the west (i.e. Canada, where their "cousins" still live).
BTW Greenland is called Kalaallit Nunaat in Inuit. 
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| Uriel |
Antarctica?! How on earth? That's on the other side of the planet! Greenland is definitely North America for me. As for it being administered by a European country -- well, as I mentioned before, all of North and South America were originally administered by European counties, so how would that make Greenland any different?
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| Shouga |
Probably because I used to be (and still am) terrible at Geography, so I used to think that both the land at the North Pole and the South Pole was 'Antartica', and that Greenland and Iceland were part of these (I also used to think no one lived on Greenland or Iceland - I thought eskimos might have died out or something lol) |
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| Uriel |
Wow.
And they say Americans are bad at geography! You just stay away from fab's maps, okay?
But don't feel bad -- the valedictorian of my high school class (the girl with the highest grades) once drew Alaska down off the coast of Mexico while we were playing Pictionary and was incensed that no one was able to guess what she was drawing. She thought that was actually where it was, since it's usually on the inset at the bottom of the map.... Uh, hello? Alaska = cold, igloos, polar bears? Probably not located off of Baja? Amazing. 
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| Shouga |
Lol! Well, I'm not that bad...
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| fab |
Iceland is often one of the forgotten European countries.
Actually I think it as really of European culture, and more precisely scandinavian. On a strict geographical sence it is just at the border between European tectonic plack and the American one. It has become now a quite touristic land, especially for those who are searching isolation and meeting with natural elements. I'd like to go there one day. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
I'm going there for my 18th birthday in April.
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| Fredrik |
No, it's Nordic. "Scandinavia" is usually used in a cultural sense: Norway, Sweden and Denmark. And to a lesser extent in a geographical sense: Norway, Sweden (and Finland). Lucky you, Benjamin! What will you do on Iceland, apart from celebrating? (I hate "in Iceland"). |
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| Porthos |
I think of Iceland and Greenland as being inherently European. I don't really include Greenland in my mental map of North America. I just think of the Vikings and its political connections to Denmark, and I so I associate it more with the far fringes of north-western Europe than with my continent. And when I think of Iceland I just think of a small European country that serves as a large U.S. military base in the North Atlantic, and with a Nordic culture and legacy. | ||||||||
| fab |
I understand that Iceland is separated from Scandinavia geographically speaking, but I always though that it was in the cultural sphere of influence of Danish people. Am I complety wrong ? |
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| Fredrik |
Although there of course was some Danish influence during the long Danish-Icelandic union, Iceland was surprisingly autonomous and little Danified, Although students had to go to Copenhagen to get an academic education, the national assembly, the Althing met and debated in Icelandic, priests preached in Icelandic, the old sagas were read by the poor peasants in the original Icelandic, new Icelandic books were published etc. All this is in marked contrast to Norway, where all intellectual life was in Danish during the union.
Icelanders certainly see Iceland as one of Norđurlöndin = the Nordic countries, but not as a Scandinavian one. The Icelandic Wikipedia describes "Scandinavia" as a geographical entity (N+S) or a social-political one with mutual intelligibility (N+S+DK). But it also notes that in other languages, especially English, "Scandinavia" is equated with the Nordic countries and thus includes Iceland:
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| fab |
is icelandic very linguistically different from the others nordic languages ?
I always though it was in reality as close to the viking's language than the other scandinavian languages. |
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| Shouga |
Well, it uses ć, Ţ and đ. Those are definately very rare letters in any other language. I don't know anything about the Vikings, but Old Norse was used in the Viking age until 1300, then Old Icelandic developed, which developed into Icelandic as we know it now. When you know Icelandic, you pretty much know Old Norse. |
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| Fredrik |
Hey, we use ć in Norwegian and Danish too! (The Swedes use ä instead.) Shouga is very right in pointing out that modern Icelandic and Old Norse is very similar, though the pronounciation has changed quite a bit, and of course the vocabulary has too. But Icelandic school children read the sagas without problems. Whereas a Scandinavian (even a West Norwegian like me) needs special training and a dictionary in order to understand the sagas. It's the Scandinavian languages which have changed very much since the Viking Age, fab. The grammar was heavily simplified pluss we borrowed a lot of words from Low German, something which the isolated Icelanders didn't do. The relationship between the Scandinavian languages and Icelandic is like French versus Italian, but all the Scandiavian languages are much closer to each other than Spanish and Italian. |
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| fab |
So iceland is culturally even more scandinavian than Sweden and Norway... ?! |
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| Fredrik |
That is a strange way of putting it. If you equate Scandinavian with Old Norse, yes, at least linguistically, but "Scandinavian" as a cultural identity only exists since the middle of the 19th century and developed as an anti-German or anti-Prussian movement:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavisme |
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| fab |
That could be also because, at least when speaking about Denmark, Sweden and Norway, because those countries are neighbours. Spanish and Italian are not so close that many people tend to think. Italy and Spain are not neibouring countries. Spanish-speaking territories and Italian ones are quite distant to each other and had their latins evoluated differently due to different influences and different environement. Actually, Spain and Italy are not neighbours and are relatively far to each other (400 kms for the shorter distance, which is between Catalunia and Italy, so not with castillian-speaking Spain) Actually the heartland of origin of the Italian language (Tuscany) and Spanish one (Castilla) are distant of about 1 000 kms (Madrid is at about 1 400km from Rome, which is quite much far than Paris - about 1000km) This situation is quite different to scandinavia (S/N/D), where the distances between capital not exceed much 400km.
I tend to equate those concepts. To me, Scandinavian realtes to the former norse-speaking peoples and regions. Actually I think you call this "nordic". To me nordic can mean this, but it also means from northern Europe as a whole, includeing the British isles, Netherlands and Germany. |
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| Fredrik |
English makes a difference between "northern" and "Nordic". Doesn't French do that? | ||||||||
| fab |
litterally in French "nordique" just mean "of the north". It doesn't say of the north of what and where the concept of north begans. In current usage, when speaking of countries or peoples, it can have generally two signification: - the restrictive one would be "scandinavian", - the other is more general and means "of the north" : it generally relates to the north of Europe, to the countries situated at the north of France. In other cases it can also referring to countries of cold climates, but not necessary in Europe - so claiming that Canada is "nordique" can be said - since it means "at north" and is associated with countries of cold climates. |
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| Fredrik |
Oh, now I see why you like to use "Scandinavian" in such a broad sense. You French guys should given adjective development a little more attention when you borrowed the names of the cardinal directions from the Germanic languages! In Norwegian we can, just as in English differentiate between northern and nordic, eastern and oriental.
The ironic thing is of course that English "Nordic" is an anglisized version of French "nordique". |
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| fab |
That's because English and Norwegian have borrowded the latin words synonyms of their cardinal adjectives (eastern, northern, western, southern), giving them a different conotation than their original meaning. - "oriental" is just the french word for "eastern" - (the only other way to say it could "de l'est" (from the east) but it is not a word. - "occidental" is the word for "western" (...de l'ouest) - "méridional" is the word for "southern" ( "...du sud") - for "northern" the real name should be "septentrional", but it is more rarely used in current usage, but more "nordique". "septentrional has maybe less conotation linked to northern Europe, but can be more easily applied to anything situated at the north of something (we can speak about "la partie septentrionale de la Corse", but more difficultly of "la partie nordique de la Corse") |
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| Uriel |
We may differentiate between the words nordic and northern in English, but I'm afraid we still lump all of the nordic countries in with Scandinavia -- Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and poor, unloved Finland! 
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| Porthos |
Or perhaps, this is what you want to believe. Most people you talk to, including ones on this board don't seem to agree, unless they are French.
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| fab |
Hmm... Spain are obviously relateted and culturally close countries - share same roots and shores on the same sea, But the subject was they are not necessary as close as, say, Sweden and Norway - At least linguistically and geographically speaking. Geographically Spain and Italy are not neigbours - and separated by a quite important distance at European scale. It is what I want to believe because that the objective reality!
At the opposite Sweden and Norway have a long common border, and their political histories are linked since centuries. 
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| Porthos |
What you are discussing extends beyond the geographic distance between the two countries. You are implying that Spanish and Italian also aren't as close to each other as most here presume, and you cite the geographic distance between the two countries as proof of this. Your overall intention once again seems to be to prove that French is indeed closer to Italian, and that France has more in common with Italy than does Spain. You suggest that France is actually closer in terms of culture and language because it shares a border with Italy, while Spain does not.
But what you don't consider is that Spain and Italy are both situated farther to the south than the majority of France, and that France is actually for the most part, north of the other two. So while Spain and Italy may not share a common border, they are both equally southern countries, with large portions of their teritorry extending into the mediterranean. And with this being the case, Spain and Italy share many geographical similarities which France does not. |
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| Fredrik |
I just want to make it clear that I said that "all the Scandiavian languages are much closer to each other than Spanish and Italian, not the other way around! I should probably have picked an example with Catalan and Occitan or something like that. | ||||||||
| fab |
Atually, I lived a big part of my life precicely in the region which is situated between Spain and Italy - From this point of view the preception of the differences are made with more precision than from an external point of view. From where I was raised the first main difference between both countries was the cardinal direction: one at the west, the other at the east. Later, when I started to pay more attention with learning both languages, I discover that they are not closer to each other than with my own language. The three of them had different kind of proximity (more sound/spelling for Spanish/italian; and vocabulary/grammar for french/Italian: but sometimes the reverse - ps; see the endless topics on this subject on antimoon archives) And then, when travelling and interesting to geography, I discovered the huge regional dersity in both cases and the geogrpahical/climatical/architectural differences of them.
This is how you (mis)interpreted it. Saying that would mainly depends on what basing the comparaison. In many cases it could be also be the inverse, I'll say it later more precisely: France has actually also a lot of common points with Spain that Italy does not have, precicely because France and Spain share a geographical region that Italy doesn't : the Atlantic. And also share a border alond the pirenean mountain chain, and two regions (catalunia and pays Basque) are cutted between the two countries, and not with Italy.
It is true for Spain, but basically not for Italy. Only about 40% of French territory is situated more northern than Italy. The fact that Paris is situated in that part should shade the other. 
It is true, but you forget to think in a east/west way too. In Europe the east/west oppoistion (even when we limit our thinking in western Europe) can be as important as the north/south one. And is again more important if considering Eastern Europe - (In terms of economy, religion, languages, but also and above all : climates). You forget that Spain has as much coasts on the Gulf of Biscay (Atlantic), than on the mediterranean. The latitudes doesn't make everything - especially concerning the cultural similarity, which are made by mainly by history and geography. On that point France and Spain had a lot of common features that Italy doesn't: both were born from very old kingdoms founded by germanic tribes in former roman colonies of the western part of the empire - (for those who think that the former "ethnicities" of the land have importance we can say that these lands were in both cases previsously populated by diverses different peoples, included Celts, and both had recieved germanic and Arabic invasions). Both countries having been unified kingdoms during the medieval times have developped strong "medieval/feudal" societies and architectures (see the other conversation I had with Frederik), that Italy does not, or have in a quite different way. Said that, adding the climate and landscapes of north-western Spain regions such as Galicia or Asturias, which, due to the Atlantic geographical position and oceanic presence develop an ambiance similar to the north-western regions or france such as Britanny (same cider drinks, traditional bagpipes music, etc.), while situated at the same latitudes than The very mediterranean tuscany... The developement in Spain of "Gothic" art and architecture in almost all its main cities (esp. cathedrals), while it is in comparision almost competly absent of Italy. Not to forget the influence of the Bourbon family, which is leading Spain since centuries - The Bourbons brought with them a specific, in terms of architecture for exemple to Spain, where it developped its own way. |
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| fab |
You're surely right, although I don't know nothing to those languages, I often have heard that they were almost the same language. |
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| fab |
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| Uriel |
You two fighting again?
I think I would have to defer to fab's greater knowledge of the area in question.
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| Porthos |
No, it would appear we're just discussing and rehashing an old subject from antimoon.
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| fab |
It is not fighting ! just an animated discussion (I thing real discussion have to be animlated, otherwise they are meaningless speeches that goes with the wind... envoyer des paroles en l'air...) | ||||||||
| Porthos |
Everyone here likes to argue at least a little Uriel. And don't forget our friend Fab is French. Their culture is more inclined to debating than ours is.
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| Uriel |
Their culture is more inclined to debating than ours is.
My ass! You like to argue just as much as he does!
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