Rate of change

Frank Rossi iglesias at axia.it
Mon Mar 15 22:29:54 UTC 1999


Rick Mc Callister wrote on 13 March:

>Galicians tell me that Portuguese is a dialect of Galician :>

Yes, that's exactly how (anachronistically ?) most Galicians view the
matter. Otherwise, why bother with the Reconquista? :)
The similarity between modern official Galician and Portuguese is highest
for morphology, followed by lexicon, syntax and pronunciation, which is the
most divergent.
The situation is bit like British and American English. Sometimes Galician
has preserved the archaic feature and  Portuguese has innovated, and vice
versa. But here we are speaking of twice the time span of separation of the
official languages, since the 15th century. And this brings us back to the
topic of the thread.

>>3) The pronunciation of Galician is very different from the standard
>>Portuguese of Lisbon, but if we consider the dialects of Northern Portugal
>>the distance is much less. (For example no difference between "b" and "v").

>But that depends on the dialect of Galician, right?

Yes, but nobody in Galicia pronounces "b" and "v" differently.

>Some are virtually the same as northern Portuguese while others are
>pretty close to bable, spoken in Asturias

Yes and no. All Galician is similar to northern Portuguese, although
perhaps in different ways, i.e., one dialect shares one feature and another
dialect another, but only the Galician bordering on Asturias is similar to
Asturian.

>But I think this may be due to Spanish influence in "urban"
>Galician and in southern Brazilian --as well as the million or so Galicians
>in southern Brazil.

That may be.

>>5) Galician may sound like Castillian, but in fact its sounds including the
>>lisped "s" were a local development parallel to that of Castille. (See
>>"Grama'tica Portuguesa" by Pilar Va'zquez Cuesta, Ed. Gredos, Madrid,
>>chapter on "El Gallego") The south of Galicia uses "seseo".

>How about intervocalic <s>, final <s> & <sC> among your wife's family?

The Galician silibants: "z", as in Castilian (= Eng. "th"); "s", as in
Castillian or Basque; "x" as in Port. (=Eng. "sh"), are all unvoiced,
including those in the intervocalic position.
Also, those in southern Galicia who use "seseo" use the Castillian "s", not
the Eng. "s" or Basque "z". And this kind of "seseo" is considered
incorrect by the Castillians, but obviously not by the Galicians!
Final "s" is very distinct, like the Mexicans and unlike the southern
Spaniards!
<sC> is /sC/

Some northern portuguese dialects have both the voiced and unvoiced series.
See in addition to the book by Pilar Va'zquez, Celso Cunha, Lindley Cintra,
"Grama'tica do Portugue^s contempora^neo", Ed. J. Sa' da Costa, Lisboa,
1985, pages 6 to 12.

>I've heard Galicians who pronounce  <j> & "soft g" [/zh/ in
>Portuguese] as /sh/

Yes, that's standard, as /zh/ doesn't exist in Galician. Port. Janeiro =
Gal. Xaneiro, with final "o" as in Castillian, not as in Port. or Asturian
/u/.

>>Un sau'do carin~oso a todos da lista indo-europea. Boa tarde.

I (Pilar) pronounce this as follows:

/u~ Saudu cariNoSo a todoS da liSta indo-europeo. boa tarde/

S = Castillian and Basque "s".

You will say shockingly Castillian, but that's the way Galician developed.
(Possibly speakers of country dialects would have more exotic
pronunciations). But Galicia has been linked to Castille and even more to
Leo'n for centuries and has been separated from Portugal by lines of
castles and forts with rusty canons pointing at each other, and yet the
dialects, the food ("o caldo galego"/"o caldo ... verde" /b/), the wine
"vin~o do Ribeiro" / "vinho ... verde" /b/),, the maize stores
("ho'rreos"), the music and the dances, and the folk dress and even the
physical appearance of the people, many of whom have light skin, hair and
eyes, in, particularly, Minho ("A Costa ... verde" /b/), and Galicia still
remain remarkably similar.
It should be added finally that Castilian as spoken by Galicians
(offensively called "Castrapo") is distinctive, and the other Spaniards say
it is less harsh and more "dulce y carin~oso" than Castilian as spoken by
natives of Castille. Extensive use is also made of the diminutive "-in~o,
-in~a", e.g. "despacin~o" = slowly.

Joint message from Frank Rossi and Pilar Iglesias Lo'pez
Bergamo, Italy
iglesias at axia.it



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