R: Re: World Lingos

Jonsson wrote:

> At 1:30 am -0400 27/8/00, Nik Taylor wrote:
> >Mike Adams wrote:
> >> But Portugese and Italian are combined with European Spanish
> >> especially are basically the same lingo, just for political reasons are
> >> called Languages, versus Dielects.
> >
> >Portuguese is pretty intelligible with Spanish, especially easy for
> >Portuguese-speakers to understand Spanish, a little more difficult the
> >other way around,
>
> Easier if it's read rather than spoken, also, methinks.  The two parted
> company a few centuries and are distinctive enough to consitute different
> languages.
>
> >but Italian and Spanish are definitely distinct
> >languages.
>
> Yes, indeed they.  One might just as well say that English & Dutch are
> "basically the same lingo, just for political reasons are called
Languages,
> versus Dielects."
Italian is completely an independent language. Then *Italian* (not dialect)
as spoken in Naples ismany times  nearly completely unintellegible by a man,
as me, from Lombardy. We have three levels of the speech:

1 National language (essentially Tuscanian as spoken by a Lombard - John,
add this to your list)

2 Regional speeches (essentially the National Language spoken with local
inflections and words - the result are independant dialects)

3 Dialects (essentially mutually unintellegible dialects that completely
change every 50 miles - what y'all call languages)

> >  But, Italian would
> >probably remain distinct for some time.  I see no likelihood of Italian
> >dying out any time soon, in a few centuries, who knows?  But not any
> >time soon.
>
> Indeed, why should it?  It is IMHO a very beautiful language
Thank you!

>; as a
> Latinist, I can understand it, when spoken, far more readily than I can
> understand Spanish.
As a Latinist you should have very little problems trying to understand
Sardinian, i.e.


Luca