Comments on Filius Lunae: Language Ambiguity

I'm a native Greek-speaker and I know basic Sp...

2011-12-07T12:37:12.082-08:00

I'm a native Greek-speaker and I know basic Spanish and I must say that the two languages sound extremely similar. In fact I was attracted to learn Spanish because it's probably the only foreign language in the world which I can pronounce just by using a native accent. I have many times while visiting foreign countries mistaken Spanish people for Greek people and vice versa. I think the

Italian-Bulgarian-Persian form a triplet of roughl...

2011-01-30T13:37:43.436-08:00

Italian-Bulgarian-Persian form a triplet of roughly similar-sounding languages.

I agree that Spanish and Greek sound very similar,...

2010-10-25T16:49:15.662-07:00

I agree that Spanish and Greek sound very similar, as well as times when English and Dutch sound similar, but never Japanese and Italian.
I thought that was a fairly bizarre comparison. Interesting though

Very interesting observation. Being a native Russi...

2010-03-15T17:46:35.005-07:00

Very interesting observation. Being a native Russian speaker I would never confuse Portuguese with Russian, but I admit that when sung it does sound eerily familiar. The giveaway to me is the presence of nasal sounds, which, of course disappeared from Old Russian in the early Middle Ages (and are retained only in Polish among modern Slavic languages).

This is very funny to me, because one of my most v...

2009-11-16T06:58:11.667-08:00

This is very funny to me, because one of my most vivid memories from my first days in grad school is of going to a New Haven coffee shop with my new roomie Paul, an Italian-American art-historian-in-training, and the two of us arguing over what language the countermen were speaking. I (who had lived in Argentina) was sure it was Spanish; Paul (who went every year to Lucca, where his family was

@Etienne: Personally, I would never mistake Japane...

2009-11-11T13:52:35.649-08:00

@Etienne: Personally, I would never mistake Japanese for Italian, or vice versa. Something about the fricatives themselves in Italian, and the consistent, predictable vowel lengthening on each word.
I can tell you, though, that I can watch the Portuguese video above and understand everything; then, watch the Russian one, and not understand a word, but still maintain that it sounds so much

@vp: One of the Russian actresses in that scene do...

2009-11-11T13:09:27.699-08:00

@vp: One of the Russian actresses in that scene does seem to emphasize a word with a "rolled R". But, you have to remember that that r is also heard in (European) Portuguese in closed syllables, as in estar and porto; without forgetting the tapped r ([ɾ]) as in presidente and para. In Russian, /x/ can give the impression, in the

To Jim Morrison: the Spanish-Greek similarity is i...

2009-11-11T12:44:36.108-08:00

To Jim Morrison: the Spanish-Greek similarity is indeed coincidental. Most of the consonants Filius Lunae listed as common to the two languages did not exist in Old Spanish and only arose after the fifteenth/sixteenth centuries, at a time when we know neither language had any significant influence on the other.

The same is true of the Russian/European Portuguese similarities: the very

When I was in Brazil, I heard many Portuguese conv...

2009-11-10T18:40:56.236-08:00

When I was in Brazil, I heard many Portuguese conversation fragments that could literally have been French.

For Russian vs. European Portuguese, the different articulation of the "R" sound (alveolar trill versus uvular) is a bit of a giveaway.

Another pair is Dutch and English. When I was in ...

2009-11-10T07:46:28.312-08:00

Another pair is Dutch and English. When I was in the Netherlands for a month, I was constantly straining to understand public announcements (which after all are often hard to understand even when they're in English) before being snapped back to reality by the fact that I had no Dutch and might as well give up.

Here of course we are dealing not only with close genetic relatives,

I have always thought this about Greek and Spanish...

2009-11-10T00:56:30.213-08:00

I have always thought this about Greek and Spanish. I know these two languages are unrelated apart from both being indo-european, but I wonder if there is any historical reason for them sounding similar or is it just pure coincidence?
Also very interesting to hear the Russian and European Portuguese comparison.