"Iberian" languages questions

[derspiess]

When I tell my daughter "I love you" she responds with "I amo" 

[Jacob]

Hey I'm not saying there aren't probably parts of the US/Anglosphere - just as a general rule one doesn't have to be particularly concerned that you'll be able to understand the type of English that someone is speaking.

So you'd have no problem following someone speaking with the local cadences if they were from Newfoundland, or a shanty town in Jo'burg, or the slums of Kingston (Jamaica), or the streets of Glasgow; or the English spoken in Bangalore and Mumbai? You readily take to all the dialects of the Anglosphere without difficulty?

That seems a bit far-fetched.

[Queequeg]

Not really. Jamaica has its own language, even if the high register of Jamaica is closer to international English. Joberg would be another pidgin. I don't think neither Newfie nor Glaswedgian are considered languages, and I can understand the latter in s matter of days of exposure. That's just not the situation in Ineria. Portugese--->Castilian--->Catalan is like English---->German---->Danish.

[garbon]

Thanks, MP.  Jake, as far as I can surmise from this thread - the various Iberian languages differ quite a bit. A few pronunciations differences here and there in English don't seem to compare.

[Josquius]

Where does Italian fit in? I'be heard before that Spaniards can understand a fair bit of it. Argentines do better I suppose? What of the Iberian regions and other Latin Americans?

[Razgovory]

Not really. Jamaica has its own language, even if the high register of Jamaica is closer to international English. Joberg would be another pidgin. I don't think neither Newfie nor Glaswedgian are considered languages, and I can understand the latter in s matter of days of exposure. That's just not the situation in Ineria. Portugese--->Castilian--->Catalan is like English---->German---->Danish.

Yeah, with Jamaica it's actually what's called a creole.  English only has one real dialect (though it can also be classified as a language on it's own), which is Scots.

[Queequeg]

Dialects don't have to mutually incomprehensible. Most of them are comprehensible. England has a ton of dialects. So does America.

[Queequeg]

Where does Italian fit in? I'be heard before that Spaniards can understand a fair bit of it. Argentines do better I suppose? What of the Iberian regions and other Latin Americans?

Italian is pretty close to Spain-a ton of different languages everywhere.  Maybe even moreso-the dominance of Castile after Las Novas de Tolosa meant that Castillan spread southward and replaced/synthesized with Mozarabic, and later on was the prestige language throughout most of the peninsula, while nothing similar happened in mainland Italy.

[Admiral Yi]

What distinguishes a dialect from a regional accent Squeelus?

[Queequeg]

What distinguishes a dialect from a regional accent Squeelus?

Changes in vocabulary.

[Admiral Yi]

Changes in vocabulary.

One word does it?  Soda/pop, hoagie/grinder/sub?

[The Larch]

Yeah. I know some Granadans and I understand nothing. I barely even hear words. For me it's the speed, when they speak slowly it's not so bad. Some other Spaniards are far easier too.

I struggle with Mexicans too.

Are the two similar?

I've read that most Latin American dialects are Seville-that is, Andalucian-influenced.  Makes sense-it was the big port, and I'd guess that the March would have attracted the sort of types who would later on find colonizing the Americas attractive.  I'm not sure how far off that is from Granadan.  With that said, I can very quickly tell the difference between Mexican Spanish and most other Spanish, though due to the nature of my exposure I probably understand more Mexican Spanish than anything else.

As Iorm said, not at all. If anything, the Caribbean Spanish accent (Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Cuba) sounds somehow similar to the Canarian accent. Mexican and other Central American dialects are a completely different beast.

[The Larch]

Where does Italian fit in? I'be heard before that Spaniards can understand a fair bit of it. Argentines do better I suppose? What of the Iberian regions and other Latin Americans?

A Spaniard and an Italian willing to understand each other can work things out, even if roughly.

[Jacob]

Not really. Jamaica has its own language, even if the high register of Jamaica is closer to international English. Joberg would be another pidgin. I don't think neither Newfie nor Glaswedgian are considered languages, and I can understand the latter in s matter of days of exposure. That's just not the situation in Ineria. Portugese--->Castilian--->Catalan is like English---->German---->Danish.

You got the point exactly backwards.

[Queequeg]

Not really. Jamaica has its own language, even if the high register of Jamaica is closer to international English. Joberg would be another pidgin. I don't think neither Newfie nor Glaswedgian are considered languages, and I can understand the latter in s matter of days of exposure. That's just not the situation in Ineria. Portugese--->Castilian--->Catalan is like English---->German---->Danish.

You got the point exactly backwards.

You'd have a far easier time understanding Swedish than a Portugese man would trying to communicate with someone monolingual in Catalan.