Can Spanish and Portuguese speakers understand Italian?

[Duarte]

I have always heard of this supposed French influence but I could never find an official source reporting how this happened, so I always thought it was a myth in Brazilian common knowledge. Would you have some reference to spare?
And I would like to point that, though BP is most likely more phonologically conservative than EP (as Galician and Camões' metric show), EP morphology is more conservative, while syntax is a mixed bag.

I support the thesis of linguists from the University of São Paulo and the Federal University of Brasília that the diglossia between the PT-BR and the PT-PT is, in itself, enough for the PT-BR to be declared a new language. In addition to the language spoken by the colonizers that arrived in Brazil already being different from that used by elites in Europe, in Brazil, this Portuguese still received influence from indigenous and African languages beyond the Spanish and, later, various European languages ​​brought by immigrants between 1850 and 1950, mainly Italian with regard to the center-south of the country. In my opinion, which is also the opinion of the common citizen, Brazilian Portuguese should be recognized as a national language and its regional variants (dialects) as regional languages. In my specific case, my native idiom is “Mineiro” and I am polyglot: I speak Mineiro, Brazilian Portuguese (simply Brazilian) and European Portuguese (simply, Portuguese). For while, I adopt the following language tree:

Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineiro

 

[Duarte]

Well, it is a fringe theory and for good reason. Syntactically and morphologically PTBR and PTPT are extremely similar, and they don't vary between each other more than two people within the same dialect with a poor and rich sociocultural background each. Whenit comes to semantics, that changes from dialect to dialect, so it is not a qualifier. Now, the issue is phonology.

It is often noted how speakers of PTPT understand PTBR but not the other way around. This is a stereotype. In some cases, for some PTBR dialects and people from low socioeconomic layers the speaker of PTPT might have a hard time. Speakers of PTPT from different regions in fact sometimes have trouble understanding each other, but no one wants to split PTPT into many different languages — which sort of already happened, with Fala and Galician anyway. The issue as you likely already know with PTPT is that the vowels are often reduced are dropped altogether and the speed is fast, while PTBR speakers speak slowly and open their mouths more. That is not uniform however; Coimbra PTPT is closer to Galician and PTBR as they speak slowlier and with a wider mouth than someone from Lisbon does. Regardless, even when it comes to Lisbon's accent, a Brazilian would be able to master the dialect by just hanging around with people for a few weeks and getting used to it — that is within the definition of a dialect or any other diastratic, diaphasic or diachronic variation of a language.

Galician however has a few noticeably morphological differences with Portuguese, such as conjugation and the X letter, many suffixes are also different, regardless of Spanish influence. Galician could be said to be the same language as PT but isn't on some linguistical grounds and unfortunately a strong political ground. Many PTBR (or PTPT) speaker also are able to read and listen to Spanish without ever having any training, but despite having an immediate one way intelligibility (like with PTBR and PTPT), they aren't considered the same language.

The attempts at a unified ortography show that the authorities in the dialects still see them as one language and intend to keep so.

When it comes to "African and indigenous influence" in PTBR, it is the same silly myth as "Arabic influence" in the Iberian languages. It is played by linguistically-illiterate anti-white ideologues who are not interested in any of those languages but just want to shove other peoples into the history of Europeans, where there they don't belong.

Phonetically, Brazilian Portuguese has affinities with 16th-century Portuguese, which is why the meter of the Camōes’ poems is almost perfect in the PT-BR rhythm and presents many imperfections in the PT-PT rhythm. It is also true that most of the colonizers were not people from the elite and all the language vices that existed in speaking way of the metropolis were brought to the colony and incorporated into the daily speaking of Brazilians. The Portuguese are bothered by the fact that Brazilians abuse the gerund and do not make proper use of the pronominal placement. It is commonly said that Brazilians are killers of Portuguese and speak too much wrong. I agree with you about the Indigenous and African influences: In fact, the indigenous influence is restricted to toponyms and names of animals and the African influence is more ethnic, related to cuisine and religious practices of African origin and linked to a specific niche of the population. But, considering that you talk a little about a supposed cultural misappropriation by non-whites, I tell you that the support I give to the creation of the Brazilian language, free from the shackles of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences or the Brazilian Academy of Letters, does have a bias political, but not ethnic, because I do not fall into the category of an anti-white ideologue, even because I am much more "white" than the average Brazilian and also much more "white" than the average Portuguese and I am not willing to shoot myself in the foot.

 

[Davidtab]

Spanish and galician speakers can understand italian, of course. Not everything and we need slow speaking but it?s not difficult to understand ones each others. Spoken French is quite more difficult to understand for us. Every southwestern european language derived from Latin is more or less intellegible ones each others. Galician speakers can understand better brazilian portuguese and northern portuguese (spoken portuguese between rivers Douro and Minho is very close to Western Galician) than official Portuguese. Actual official portuguese is not very easy for us (galician speakers) because of phonology, written portuguese and galician are almost the same, but when a Galician speaker hears a portuguese from Central or Southern Portugal, from Lisbon, by example, is like official Castillian would be the one spoken in Cadiz or Seville, we understand ones each others but not so easily as we understand northern portuguese. I think galician-portuguese from Middel Ages is clearly closer to Galician than to actual Portuguese, it seems Portuguese evolved more and quicker.
Clearly the more disruptive Latin derived languages in southwestern Europe are French and Castillian, in comparison to the languages around them. You see the "manners" of italian, occitan, portuguese, etc... and they share a lot, but Castillian and French built different evolutions.

 

[citlec]

not everything, but yes we can understand some italian with some mutual patience.

 

[Duarte]

Portuguese newspaper highlights Portuguese children who 'only speak Brazilian'

An article published by the Portuguese newspaper Diário de Notícias, one of the most traditional print media in Portugal, on Wednesday, 10, caught the attention of the Brazilian public by stating that there are Portuguese children who "only speak Brazilian". The reason pointed out by the publication would be the influence of youtubers from Brazil, the most watched by the Portuguese "kids", who would be changing the way children talk.

"They say ‘grama’ (grass in PT-BR) instead of ‘relva’ (grass in PT-PT), ‘ônibus’ (bus in PT-BR) instead of ‘autocarro’ (bus in PT-PT), ‘bala’ (candy in PT-BR) instead of ‘rebuçado’ (candy in PT-PT), ‘listras’ (stripes in PT-BR) instead of ‘riscas’ (stripes in PT-PT) and they say ‘milk is in the ‘geladeira’ (fridge in PT-BR) instead of in the frigorífico (fridge in PT-PT).

Educators notice this especially after confinement - due to many hours of exposure to manufactured contents by Brazilian YouTubers. The opinions of parents, teachers and specialists are divided between concern and those who put it into perspective, as they consider it to be a phase, as happened with “soap operas", says the Portuguese newspaper.

The topic has become one of the most talked about issues on social media in Brazil. Users split between those who joked about the matter, pointing to the Brazilian influence reported as a kind of "reverse colonialism" and making comparisons between terms used in Brazil and Portugal, while other users - both Brazilian and Portuguese - questioned the xenophobic content of the publication, when referring to the Portuguese spoken in Brazil as "Brazilian", despite the language being only one.

Another character mentioned in the article and echoed by the networks was the Brazilian youtuber Luccas Neto, presented by Diário de Notícias as one of the most watched in Portugal. Some users wrote that the content producer from Rio de Janeiro would be avenging Portuguese colonization in America.

"Há crianças portuguesas que só falam 'brasileiro'"


https://www.dn.pt/sociedade/ha-criancas-portuguesas-que-so-falam-brasileiro-14292845.html

 

[Angela]

Portuguese newspaper highlights Portuguese children who 'only speak Brazilian'

An article published by the Portuguese newspaper Diário de Notícias, one of the most traditional print media in Portugal, on Wednesday, 10, caught the attention of the Brazilian public by stating that there are Portuguese children who "only speak Brazilian". The reason pointed out by the publication would be the influence of youtubers from Brazil, the most watched by the Portuguese "kids", who would be changing the way children talk.

"They say ‘grama’ (grass in PT-BR) instead of ‘relva’ (grass in PT-PT), ‘ônibus’ (bus in PT-BR) instead of ‘autocarro’ (bus in PT-PT), ‘bala’ (candy in PT-BR) instead of ‘rebuçado’ (candy in PT-PT), ‘listras’ (stripes in PT-BR) instead of ‘riscas’ (stripes in PT-PT) and they say ‘milk is in the ‘geladeira’ (fridge in PT-BR) instead of in the frigorífico (fridge in PT-PT).

Educators notice this especially after confinement - due to many hours of exposure to manufactured contents by Brazilian YouTubers. The opinions of parents, teachers and specialists are divided between concern and those who put it into perspective, as they consider it to be a phase, as happened with “soap operas", says the Portuguese newspaper.

The topic has become one of the most talked about issues on social media in Brazil. Users split between those who joked about the matter, pointing to the Brazilian influence reported as a kind of "reverse colonialism" and making comparisons between terms used in Brazil and Portugal, while other users - both Brazilian and Portuguese - questioned the xenophobic content of the publication, when referring to the Portuguese spoken in Brazil as "Brazilian", despite the language being only one.

Another character mentioned in the article and echoed by the networks was the Brazilian youtuber Luccas Neto, presented by Diário de Notícias as one of the most watched in Portugal. Some users wrote that the content producer from Rio de Janeiro would be avenging Portuguese colonization in America.

"Há crianças portuguesas que só falam 'brasileiro'"


https://www.dn.pt/sociedade/ha-criancas-portuguesas-que-so-falam-brasileiro-14292845.html

Is the Portuguese spoken in Brazil different enough from the Portuguese spoken in Portugal that some linguists could describe it as a different language?

If it isn't, then it's just another tempest in a teapot fueled by social media, imo.

It reminds me of the complaints of some French and Italian people at the way that English words have crept into their languages. I get it, I really do, but languages change over time and always have, no matter what groups like the Accademia della Crusca think.

 

[Duarte]

Is the Portuguese spoken in Brazil different enough from the Portuguese spoken in Portugal that some linguists could describe it as a different language?

If it isn't, then it's just another tempest in a teapot fueled by social media, imo.

It reminds me of the complaints of some French and Italian people at the way that English words have crept into their languages. I get it, I really do, but languages change over time and always have, no matter what groups like the Accademia della Crusca think.

There aren't enough differences to say that they are two different languages. It's actually a single language with two variants. I agree with you Angela: it's just another tempest in a teapot fueled by social media. The YouTubers live of that.