Having spent a couple of weeks in Brasil, and having studied Spanish, I can say from personal experience that Portuguese and Spanish are no more (or less) similar than any other two Romance languages. I heard Brasilians ay that Portuguese sounds like a drunken sailor trying to speak French.
Paul Brandon Emeritus Professor of Psychology Minnesota State University, Mankato [email protected] On May 31, 2011, at 8:47 AM, Mike Palij wrote: > On Tue, 31 May 2011 05:43:38 -0700, Michael Sylvester wrote: >> Now that Paul has failed to discriminate between Spanish and >> Portuguese in Brazil, > > I was the one who said that I was unable to discriminate between > Spanish and Portuguese. And not only in Brazil but everywhere. > >> it is my understanding that Portuguese is closer to classical Latin >> than Spanish.Is that true? > > I'm not sure what you mean by the statement above. For a history > of the development of Portuguese, see this Wikipedia (yadda-yadda) > entry: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Portuguese_language > > The entry claims that it is part of the Romance languages (i.e., based > on the Latin which was spread by the Roman conquests) but appears > to be based on "Vulgar Latin". See the Wikipedia entry: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin > > Though based on vulgar Latin, Portuguese has commonalities with > Spanish. See the Wikipedia entry: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_Spanish_and_Portuguese > > Quoting the article: > > |Although Portuguese and Spanish are closely related, to the point > |of having a considerable degree of mutual intelligibility, there are > |also important differences between them, which can pose difficulties > |for people acquainted with one of the languages who attempt to > |learn the other. Both are part of a broader group known as West > |Iberian Romance, which also contains several minor languages or > |dialects with fewer speakers, all of which are mutually intelligible > |among themselves to some degree. > | > |There are also some significant differences between Brazilian Portuguese > |and European Portuguese as there are between British and American > |English or Spanish in Spain and Spanish in Latin America. > >> Any psychoinguist on Tips? Stuart McKelvie perhaps? > > Maybe, but some psycholinguists are hiding in plain sight. > > -Mike Palij > New York University > [email protected] > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13438.3b5166ef147b143fedd04b1c4a64900b&n=T&l=tips&o=10795 > or send a blank email to > leave-10795-13438.3b5166ef147b143fedd04b1c4a649...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=10796 or send a blank email to leave-10796-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
