Questions About Portugal

Between 1000-1600 not only geographical but ethnical, althought light, the similar features in culture, society and history. As say one time Barbarroja, Portugal don't differ speciall from Castille and Aragon until the final break in 1640, before that date, althought each kingdom had took differents ways, the differences were less powerful than the common things.

But Lusitania wasn't Portugal, was part of Portugal and part of Castile.

Hispania = Portugal + Spain = Iberia

Simple

So Frederick take a look over here -> http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portu%C3%B1ol

Originally posted by pinguin I really don't know what Portu�ol is. However, as a Spanish speaker I can tell you I can undertand most of what a Portuguese speaker says if speak slowly. It is funny but sometimes some reporters of Spanish speaking countries interview Brazilian soccer players and they answer in Portuguese.   And everyones understand!   Pinguin

I confirm that , it's funny to see to the report and the player talking in differents languages and understanding everything. And the most funny is that millions peoples in their homes, like i and my family, agree or disagree with the words of the player

For all guys, another prove of the familiar languages that are portuguese and castillian is that we can read perfectly the idiom of the other.

The problems begin when we talk fast, impossible to understand anything.


Edited by Ikki - 08-Nov-2006 at 18:18

Of course. But for Castillian Speakers European Portuguese is much more difficult to understand, especially Portuguese from the southern regions of Portugal. The main differente between European and Brazilian Portuguese is the vowel pronunciation. While the Brazillians pronounce all vowels clear and loud, just like castillian speakers. While European Portuguese speakers (except maybe from the northernmost regions) tend to "eat" vowels, especially those from Lisbon and the southern provinces of Alentejo and Algarve.
Examples:
"O Ant�nio fez aquilo num instante" - "Ant�nio did that very fast"
Brazilian Portuguese-"O Ahntohniio feiz ahqiilo num iinstantji"
European Portuguese-"O Antohnio fez aqilo nun'stante"

That's why European portuguese is to difficult to understand. Despite being a romanic language, it is closed, much more closed than french in terms of prounciation, it's as closed as slavic languages, that's why eastern european immigrants in portugal can easily learn portuguese.
And we speak very fast, that makes even more difficult to foreigners to learn European Portuguese.

Portunhol/Portu�ol is also spoken in Southern America I think. But it's a an improvised "language" often touristic. It can be quite usefull. When I was at Estonia, our guide spoke Portunhol, that made he be understandable for us.
It is basically when a Portuguese tries to speak Castillian or Vice-Versa.
BTW First Post!

I am not an expert in Portunhol, and I don't believe it is spoken nowdays. Portunhol was basicly the language (I even hesitate in calling it a language) that the portuguese spoke and wrote when in Castille or other Spanish countries. It is basicly a dialect born out of ignorance, and consist in speaking and writing castillian with the use of portuguese articles, nouns and adverbs, as well as the ocasional portuguese word, mingled between castillan. To anyone who doesn't understand castillan, it will sound castillan.

Originally posted by Barbarroja but El/La, like in Catalan (El/la/l') or in French (Le/la/l') i think come from latin and it's only a coinsedence.

That's true, el and la come from latin ille and illa, meaning 'this'.

Originally posted by xi_tujue s it possible that spanish lnguage is influenced by arabic? thats why it differnt than protugese. like the spanish word for the is El and the arabic word for the is Al or is this just a coinsedence