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Comment by Rod | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, it's also hypothesized that Brazilian Portuguese is closer to Portuguese proper 500 years ago than Portuguese proper today. The fact that the Portuguese spoken in former Portuguese colonies in Africa sounds more Brazilian Portuguese than Portuguese proper suggests the hypothesis is right. Moreover, Portuguese poetry of the Renaissance period only makes sense phonetically if spoken with a Brazilian accent, which further strengthens the hypothesis.

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For what is worth, African Portuguese sounds more like European Portuguese to us Brazilians.

Portuguese poetry of the Renaissance period only makes sense phonetically if spoken with a Brazilian accent

In this case I wonder which Brazilian accent? I guess it would be Rio accent or some Northeastern accent.

In case anyone is curious the hear the differences, this page contains recordings of a Portuguese sentence spoken by people of several different areas:

http://www.learningportuguese.co.uk/audio/compare-accents.ht...

For Galician (see [1] for the reason why this is relevant) speakers, Brazilian and African accents are easier to parse than "official" (not northern) Portuguese. Whatever the history there, it seems very clear to me that it's the central/southern Portuguese version that diverged the most from whatever was the original language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician_language

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that(due to its largely african(mores) population) some southern dialects are as much arabic as portugese dialects?

Portuguese and Castillian both had massive arabic influences in pronunciation and vocabulary, not only because of demographics, but also because the Muslims had a more advanced and refined culture at the time. Still,

- they both remained mostly latin languages, and

- that influence had already happened when American colonization began. In Spain, the Muslim and Jewish were banned the very year America was discovered.

So the only explanatory power of that fact may be that

- Portuguese colonies were repopulated mainly from the north of the country (as was the case at least for Brazil), and

- that the southern dialects of the language have been promoted as the standard and expanded throughout the country. This is true today, where mass media are washing away the northern phonetics (actually richer: they distinguish between x and ch and -om and -am), accents and vocabulary in new generations.

Doubtless it's true. There are pockets of people in the Colorado and New Mexico who essentially speak 16th century Spanish. They just got pinched off from the mainstream for a long time.

Languages evolve too but much more quickly. The British who came to America spoke the same dialects of course, but this changes in one generation.

We pick up the dialect of the people that we are exposed to as we learn speech, so likely back then family was more influential then now, especially if you lived in the country.

And, of course, how we speak was influenced by the native population. I grew up near the Onondaga Reservation in New York and probably speak a bit like the people who live there.

In support of that hypothesis, migration to Brazil came mainly from the north of Portugal, where the language was born. Also, Brazil was spared the strong French influence in the XIX century.

Nowadays, the pronunciation of Lisbon (center-south) actually loses information (deemphasizing and even omitting some vowels and losing other distinctions like -om/-am into ão) wrt others, so it's hard to imagine evolution to have happened the other way.

Same for Spanish, Spanish as spoken in Colombia is very crisp and precise, Spanish spoken in Spain much less so.

Also, like in UK, you can find like twenty different accents only in Spain. Even in Canary Islands, with 7 main islands, have huge difference between them.

Not to speak of Catalonia, Basque Country, Andalusia, Madrid, Zaragoza or Galicia (closer to Portuguese).

Spain has now 6 official and co-official languages: Castilian/Spanish, Catalan/Valencian (Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Valencia, South of France), Basque (Basque Country and Navarra —Pamplona—, South of France), Galician (Galician and nortwest Castille), and Asturian (Asturias/Leon) and then Occitan (North Aragon, North Catalonia, South of France).

Also, in Melilla and Ceuta (Spanish cities in North Africa) there are two "branches" of arab that are in the process of becoming co-official, "dariya" or "moroccan arab" in Ceuta and "tamazig", some sort of antique Bereber language in Melilla.

So, that's 8 languages, also Portuguese and a myriad different accents in a peninsula with less the area of Texas.

Edit: Bereber is older than arab, so it's not an 'arab branch'.

Edit2: Add English to the list, as official language spoken in Gibraltar (UK colony).

Thanks for shedding light on this. Almost all Americans fail to realize that there's no such thing as a "Spanish language". There are many of them, Castilian being the "official" one (it's what it's written in the Spanish Constitution anyways). One could, perhaps, call them all Hispanic languages, since most of them (Basque is the notorious exception) are derived from Latin from the times of the Roman province of Hispania.

Well, Castilian (Castellano) is Spanish, and Spanish is Castilian according to definition. Although all of them are 'Spanish languages' because they are languages spoken in Spain.

I guess difference, if we call it that way, between Spanish and Castellano as terms, is the similar of English and British. Right? I'm not sure, but I guess they are close.

Check this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Castellano-Espa%C3%B1ol.pn...

* Blue: Places where it's mainly called 'Spanish' (Español)

* Red: Places where it's mainly called 'Castilian' (Castellano)

I understand the definition Castellano = Spanish, as it simplifies a lot of things. The danger of such definition is that it overshadows the other languages spoken in Spain. The definition British English = English proper is one thing, but British = English is another, as it obscures the fact that there are other languages spoken in Britain and, thus, is somewhat "imperialistic".

In any case, I have never met a Spanish person who said "I speak Spanish" in Castellano. I have heard Spanish people saying that in English, because most foreigners are somewhat ignorant about Spain and think that the country is all about toros y sevillanas, a monolithic, homogeneous block, culturally and linguistically, which is far from the truth.

Disclaimer: I am Portuguese.

Totally agree with you. In Spain we usually say 'castellano' (as stated by the wikipedia), and almost everyone say 'castellano' in areas where there is more than one official language.

In America is different, as there are no more 'Spanish languages' spoken there (apart from Portuguese being an 'Hispanic language') it's more fair to say 'Español' again: I guess.

The difference between 'Spanish' and 'Hispanic' will fill books and books. I remember studying when Queen of Castille and Navarre, and the King of Aragon married and thus, creating what's mostly known today as Spain, calling it something like 'Ispania / Espanya' and get an angry letter from King of Portugal saying something like:

"You can't call your kingdom that way, because 'Hispania' refers to the whole peninsula and Portugal is not part of the kingdom, so change it asap, thanx bye"

History is sure fun

And the truth is even more complex than that.

Roman "Hispania" included originally a good chunk of what today is southern France and of the north of Africa, territory that nowadays would be in Morocco and Algeria.

After the Muslim invasion, (I)spania it was the name the Christians gave to Al-Andalus, the Muslim part of the peninsula, while the Christian northwest preserved the name Gallaecia. In some of these maps, especially in the translation of arab ones, the opposition Gallaecia vs (H(i))spania/Al-Andalus can be observed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfcBE8iEYkc

The kingdom of Aragon, and therefore "Ispania", included Sicily and Naples too at some point.

On the other hand, in Galicia it's independentist people who most often refer to Castillian as "Spanish", implying that Galicia/Basque Country/Catalonia not being Spain, and Asturian-Leonese and Aragonese being mostly extinct, the only language left in "Spain" is pretty much Castillian.

Spanish from Spain sounded really ... almost guttural to me the first time I heard it. Plus they do that lisp thing - thinco instead of sssinco. I think I prefer the new-world variety.

And their best player at the world cup, David Villa's name is correctly pronounced Dabid Biya

'll' is not equivalent to 'y' in standard Spanish, although the confusion exists in some zones (not in Asturias, from where Villa is) and it's a decent approximation for a non-native speaker.

As opposed to nearby romances, Spanish never distinguished between 'b' and 'v'. This is probably a Basque influence. There was a Roman pun[1] on these lines that said "beati Hispani quibus vivere bibere est" (blessed are the Spaniards, for whom to live [vivere] is to drink [bibere]).

By the way, this joke was played on Aquitanians, who occupied land mostly outside of the peninsula (nowadays southwest of France). This links with other thread on the historical fluidity of the concept of 'Hispania.'

Whoever differentiates between b and v speaking Spanish nowadays is either:

- a native Catalan speaker,

- trying to appear more upper-class through imitation of the French, a fashion that started in the Illustration times, or

- a descendant of one of the above.

[1] http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=997178

Check that link, especially post #7 -- the pun is Renaissance era, not Roman.

Can you shed more light on 'll' vs 'y'? In Mexico, at least, the two are similar enough that handmade signs frequently contain spelling errors confusing the two.

Can you shed more light on 'll' vs 'y'?

You know, Argentinians also speak Castilian, and the way they pronounce the -ll- is completely different from everyone else. Hence, bringing up Mexico to prove that Spanish pronounce -ll- and -y- the same way is a very weak form of argumentation. Euccastro seems to know what he's talking about, so shame on whoever downvoted him.

Check that link [...]

Read the last message in the thread:

(Quinto Horacio Flaco (65-8 B.C.), Latin poet)

Re: the confusion of 'll' and 'y' in Mexico and elsewhere:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye%C3%ADsmo

No matter what you prefer, thinco is the pronunciation that preserves the most information. A latin-american speaker can't distinguish phonetically between "cebo" and "sebo", for example. Therefore it's hard to argue that the american collapsing of 'th' sounds into 's' is closer to the original language.

I'm not arguing which one is better or original or anything. I simply don't know enough Spanish or enough about it; just expressing which one I think sounds nicer.

Why is it that whenever I hear Brazilians speak, I think they are speaking Russian?

Funny! Before I went on a trip to Lisbon, a lot of people 'warned' me about the sound of the language. Event Tourist-Guides for Lisbon tell you that when you hear portuguese, you'd confuse it with polish.

I think this is because of the combination of rothic-sounds (rothic R), and a whole lot of nasal- and smooth-sounds alltogether. (Feel free, to translate this sentence into linguistical-speak).

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