Prata du Svenska?
Reading about the relationship between various languages was such an eye-opening experience. It's something I've always known but to actually read about how and why it happens was really interesting. The evolution of language is obviously complex and difficult to follow often without the lack of recorded forms of the earlier languages. However, as the chapter showed, the evidence is right there in the many languages earlier forms spawned.
My ongoing problem is that sometimes the differences between a dialect and language can still seem arbitrary to me. I've heard of dialects that are farther apart than some languages. In high school and on through college I learned Swedish. I happened to run into a Norwegian exchange student several months ago and was amazed at the ease in which I could converse with him. Technically Swedish and Norwegian are separate languages, however the minute changes to words and grammar did little to impede our ability to communicate in his native language and my second language. It was definitely a fun and educational experience and made me appreciate reading this chapter all the more!
Comments
it's good that the distinction between langauge and dialect seems arbitrary, because in one way they are. the difference between languages and dialects usually have more to do with socio-political issues than linguistic distinctions.
now there are clear examples of two completely distinct languages from two distinct langauge families (eg English and Japanese), but there are many cases where pretty much mutually understandable language systems (like Czech and Slovak) are considered two distinct languages because of political or cultural distinctions, or mutually unintelligable language systems are considered dialects (like the Chinese dialects) for similar reasons.
we'll discuss this a bit more when we cover language varieties.
Posted by: aaron bruenger | March 27, 2006 2:39 PM
In taking spanish I find some part easier to speak however I took a some Italian in school a while ago. With Italian, I find that it is a smoother process from Spanish to Italian then English. My brain just doesn’t connect. But I did notice on the chart that Spanish and Italian both have close Latin roots. So maybe that is why my brain doesn't have a conflict with that.
Posted by: Adrienne Lee | March 28, 2006 1:16 PM
the connection between swedish and norwegian languages is interesting - members of my family speak some swedish, so i have picked up a few (very simple!) phrases. and my boyfriend speaks a little norwegian, which he's taken in school. but when i say my little bit of swedish to him, he can understand it, and although i don't know what he's saying in norwegian, it sounds the same to me.
Posted by: ally carey | March 29, 2006 1:21 PM
You mean "pratar du svenska?" right? :)
I love how similar a lot of Swedish words are to English words too--book, lampa, stol, hund...
If anybody is still trying to decide which language to take here, I highly recommend swedish!
Posted by: Heather | March 29, 2006 3:03 PM
I do mean pratar du svenska! Wonderful evidence of what happens when you stop using a second language for a couple years. But I definitely echo your encouragement in people taking Swedish. It's a really fun language and the language instructors here are really great!
Posted by: Chris Wilson | March 30, 2006 2:18 AM
Building on the relationships between different languages, I've personally always wondered why French and Italian are "more" similar than say French to Spanish or Spanish to Italian. This is based on that here at the U there's the French and Italian department (in addition to being departments for each respective language). I don't know a whole lot about Italian, but looking over some words/passages, I did notice similarities for spellings and words, but the pronunciation is quite different.
The main question that I'm getting at then is what causes different cultures to pronounce things differently if they're in the same family e.g. French is very nasalized, but Italian is not? I realize that's a huge question, but it's interesting to think about how people talk/form words.
Posted by: Adam Rusinak | March 30, 2006 10:14 AM