Languages Sounding Similar

lee1962

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I like to think that I can recognise all of the major European languages that use the Latin alphabet when I see them written down. This is not the case when I hear them spoken though. There are pairs of languages which sound pretty much the same to me, even though they aren't even in the same language family in some cases.

Spanish and Catalan
Spanish and Basque
French and Breton
West Frisian and Dutch
Albanian and Greek

I'm assuming it's because the language which has fewer speakers has been influenced by the dominant language. If so, how much further apart were these languages at one time? I know that Old English and Old Frisian were very similar, but their modern descendants aren't at all similar.
 
- Breton and French as a whole are not so similar, spite for accent place Vannetais Dialect is closer to French;
modern Breton speakers are in two groups: old natural speakers (different melody) and new speakers; even like that, differences ares till there - evident differences: the guttural 'c'h' and the 'h' in some dialects - the most evident link would be the nasalisation of vowels, very strong in French and Briton, less present in Gaelics (more in Erse than in Irish) and today absent in Welsh -
Spanish and Basque share some traits it's true (Castillan has been influenced by a pop close enough to Basques and Gascons)- Catalan seems a bit less close in my opinion -
Frisian ought to be compared with eastern Scot rather to modern English, I think - here the links are more evident, without identity it's true - When I herd Frisians speaking I immediatly did the difference from classical Dutch speakers (their implosive '-r' very often, non-guttural 'g-' in beginning of word, plus a lot of things)
Here I'm splitting hairs - but I agree the ancient community of languages can be disrupted by time and that the conservative writing can mask modern divergences (Portuguese sounds very different from Castillan or Italian, even from close Galician, and evocates rather a crossing between French Auvergnats and Slavs, and sounds even far enough from today Brasilian too!) -

But I don' think the languages of dominant language influence so much the pronounciation of small regions languages or it does it only when bilinguism is well settled and the work is done rather through media than through school -
but there are many cases: dialects vs close language or language vs foreign language, policy, economy - causes: substrata or superstrata or isolation - it would deserve a very long and deep survey -
 
I avow welsh has something which evocates Spanish prosody (lack of evident oppositions in syllabic length with only certain monosyllabic being long, compared to other celtic languages, themselves closer to continental languages concerning it as Germanics or Italian) - my impression -
 
I like to think that I can recognise all of the major European languages that use the Latin alphabet when I see them written down. This is not the case when I hear them spoken though. There are pairs of languages which sound pretty much the same to me, even though they aren't even in the same language family in some cases.

Spanish and Catalan
Spanish and Basque
French and Breton
West Frisian and Dutch
Albanian and Greek

I'm assuming it's because the language which has fewer speakers has been influenced by the dominant language. If so, how much further apart were these languages at one time? I know that Old English and Old Frisian were very similar, but their modern descendants aren't at all similar.
Excluding West Frisian and Dutch (since I don't know how West Frisian sounds), the only languages listed by you that sound similar are Spanish with Greek.

Greek and Albanian (strangely enough) sound very very different from each other, besides the accent/dialect of Mani in Greece (my personal experience) and perhaps the "thick" accent of Epirots which from far does give you Albanian vibes.
 
I like to think that I can recognise all of the major European languages that use the Latin alphabet when I see them written down. This is not the case when I hear them spoken though. There are pairs of languages which sound pretty much the same to me, even though they aren't even in the same language family in some cases.

Spanish and Catalan
Spanish and Basque
French and Breton
West Frisian and Dutch
Albanian and Greek

I'm assuming it's because the language which has fewer speakers has been influenced by the dominant language. If so, how much further apart were these languages at one time? I know that Old English and Old Frisian were very similar, but their modern descendants aren't at all similar.


Albanian and Greek sound the same?

I do not think so.
first are sounds of greek that do not exist or are rare in Albanian
and also sound of Albanian that do not exist in Greek

As a Greek I understand easily when someone Albanian for they have many Slavic sounds-phthonges,
and East Satem like Iranian sound of S and H.

most people compare Greek sounding closer to Portoguese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Uz7liYHBUs


Listen to Greek, a news broadcast
no soung of G D fat S fat H , Slavic -ia
Я



Now Listen to Albanian
especially sounds like fat S and H, G and R

Because I can not post 2 videos in the same post I give a Link.
on an Albanian news broadcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyfrhmNxucc



I think if your ear is favorite to Slavic and Germanic languages
you must agree that the Phthongues in Albanian languages are towards Slavic Germanic and Iranian.
Far away from Greek
 
As a Greek I understand easily when someone Albanian for they have many Slavic sounds-phthonges,
and East Satem like Iranian sound of S and H.

most people compare Greek sounding closer to Portoguese
Greek sounds closer to Portuguese? You're kidding right? Take a Chinese with no knowledge whatsoever on European languages and he'll tell you they're very different. Greek sounds like Spanish that even for me as a speak is hard to distinguish if I can't clearly hear the words of a table next to me in a coffee shop or restaurant. Portuguese sounds more like Slavic and far from Greek.

Listen to Greek, a news broadcast
no soung of G D fat S fat H , Slavic -ia

Now Listen to Albanian
especially sounds like fat S and H, G and R

Because I can not post 2 videos in the same post I give a Link.
on an Albanian news broadcast


I think if your ear is favorite to Slavic and Germanic languages
you must agree that the Phthongues in Albanian languages are towards Slavic Germanic and Iranian.
Far away from Greek
I don't know what's a fat S, but I assume you're referring to 'sh'. If that's the case, some mountainous regions in Greece do have that sound together with the typical Albanian "q" which is kind of a harsher version of Greek "x" as in "oxi" (okhi, meaning "no" in English).

In the same time, it seems that you have no idea how Iranian sounds like. Living in the Middle East has given me the chance to hear Iranian a lot and the only language I can confuse it for is Turkish, although the more you hear it the easier it gets to distinguish.
 
Greek sounds closer to Portuguese? You're kidding right? Take a Chinese with no knowledge whatsoever on European languages and he'll tell you they're very different. Greek sounds like Spanish that even for me as a speak is hard to distinguish if I can't clearly hear the words of a table next to me in a coffee shop or restaurant. Portuguese sounds more like Slavic and far from Greek.


I don't know what's a fat S, but I assume you're referring to 'sh'. If that's the case, some mountainous regions in Greece do have that sound together with the typical Albanian "q" which is kind of a harsher version of Greek "x" as in "oxi" (okhi, meaning "no" in English).

In the same time, it seems that you have no idea how Iranian sounds like. Living in the Middle East has given me the chance to hear Iranian a lot and the only language I can confuse it for is Turkish, although the more you hear it the easier it gets to distinguish.


Sorry I know how Iranian Sh and H sounds,
and i 've seen and spoke and hear many times,
especially the lat years lots of iranians Kurds Iraqis are living in my area,
and many students travel here,

As for the fat Sh and H does not exist in Greek,
the only fat is the L in Makedonia

the Greek S is unigue,
and is simmilar only to Kallasha S

 
Sorry I know how Iranian Sh and H sounds,
and i 've seen and spoke and hear many times,
especially the lat years lots of iranians Kurds Iraqis are living in my area,
and many students travel here,

As for the fat Sh and H does not exist in Greek,
the only fat is the L in Makedonia

the Greek S is unigue,
and is simmilar only to Kallasha S

I have some Maniote songs and I clearly hear what you call the fat 's' and 'l' as in Albanian. I do agree with you as I've always noticed how the Greek 's' sounds like something in between 's' and 'sh' in other European languages.

On the other hand, the only languages (or dialects) that sound similar to Albanian to a certain degree are the Neapolitan and Sicilian. I was personally astonished years ago when I found out how both Albanian and South Italian in general both adopt and transform words and we always joked how this type of "word butchering" is so similar. To my knowledge there are no other languages that share those trains.
 
Spanish and Catalan
Spanish and Basque
French and Breton
West Frisian and Dutch
Albanian and Greek

From my knowledge, Spanish and Catalan may sound similar to a non-speaker of one of them, except that Spanish lacks 3 vowel sounds and voiced consonants (as distinctive allophones) Prosody could be similar due to contact during centuries, but still find Catalan closer to Portuguese or French or Italian on that.

Spanish and Basque, sound so much different to me...I always thought Basque sounded a little like Japanese (but I know nothing of none of them, lol)

On your same line, I find curious how Russian prosody sounds like Portuguese to me...
 

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