Catalan, Barcelona and Hannibal Barca.

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Trapy
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Catalan, Barcelona and Hannibal Barca.

Postby Trapy » 2015-09-12, 19:31

The Catalan region seems to roughly follow the historic domain of Hannibal and the Barca dynasties before rome annexed Iberia. Is there any linguistic crossover, or is it just because Barcelona ( named for the Barcas) just happens to survive as an important city through the ages, and although the linguistics was wiped, Barcelona's natural reach is about the same size?

I am trying to tell myself that Catalan is the next language I should attempt to learn and wondering how much flavor separates it from just Castilian spanish.
"and now every toilet will burn to ashes!""

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loqu
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Re: Catalan, Barcelona and Hannibal Barca.

Postby loqu » 2015-09-12, 22:06

As far as I'm aware (I may be wrong) there is hardly any trace of any Punic language in Catalan. There are some traces of Iberian and Basque here and there, but they are hardly significant and Punic is even less present.

Trapy wrote:wondering how much flavor separates it from just Castilian spanish.

El català i el castellà són bastant diferents (bé, sense oblidar que les dos són llengües romàniques). El català té més en comú amb l'occità que amb el castellà, i té diversos trets en comú amb el francés i/o l'italià que el castellà no té.

Catalan and Spanish are quite different (well, never forgetting that they are both Romance languages). Catalan has more in common with Occitan than with Spanish, and has several traits in common with French and/or Italian that Spanish doesn't have.

Segurament, tu que saps castellà, quan lliges català ho entengues quasi tot, però t'adonaràs de diferències importants. Passa't per l'article sobre el català a la Viquipèdia catalana i mira de veure quant n'entens.
Since you know Spanish, when you read Catalan you'll surely understand almost everything, but you'll notice some important differences. Have a look at the article on Catalan in the Catalan Wikipedia and see how much you understand.

Et deixe un parell d'enllaços a vídeos on pots sentir català i jutjar per tu mateix les similituds amb el castellà.
I'll give you some links to clips where you can hear some Catalan and judge by yourself its similarities with Spanish.

Tràiler de Gru, el meu dolent preferit (Despicable me) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCRYMCBDJUA
Tràiler de Divergent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5yzZGhN34
A comedy program from the extinct Valencian television, Socarrats (this one in Valencian, the dialect I speak) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkke4yujvU0
Нека људи уживају у стварима.
Let people enjoy things.

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Trapy
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Re: Catalan, Barcelona and Hannibal Barca.

Postby Trapy » 2015-09-13, 3:41

Aye, this is an odd sensation, as I am trying to read it in Spanish and my brain is telling me "this is wrong", or better, as if driving in the rain and knowing there is a road ahead, but having little visibility and relying on instinct to get through.

I gave Romanian a go earlier this year, and as a Germanic language native, it was very interesting to see how an eastern Romance language evolved. I fell off the TAC bandwagon as I had no one to practice with on a daily basis, and went exploring Wolof. That was fun, but again, no one to practice with, few resources and zero chance I would ever go to Senegal (in the next 10 years anyway).

My first brush with Catalan was years ago before I got into languages (before I even started learning Spanish!) with this industrial goth song (I was young..): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw2YwWn3LuY I had to google the lyrics (Ja no puc sentir) and felt it was a mysterious, secret and ancient language. But, I never got much further other than misunderstanding that it was like a dialect of Spanish.

So, I have been thinking of buying resources and using the (recently found) Catalan language authority's resources to study it, but I am always afraid that it will be too similar to a language I already know (why I haven't tried to learn Dutch, as I speak English and German), not be useful when traveling ever (learning Venetian or Frisian), or have no resources (I love Ainu, but... :(). That's also why I asked if there was any of the Barca (I forgot the adjective Punic, thank you!) culture crossing in, but after two millennia of roman and moorish rule I was doubtful.

With your examples though, I think I will still give it a shot. I love Romance languages (except italian, scuzi!) and this sounds like it will be fun. None of the other language families seem to have as easy an entry and as much to keep my attention.

Thank you again! I might bëg for help in this au forum later this month

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loqu
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Re: Catalan, Barcelona and Hannibal Barca.

Postby loqu » 2015-09-13, 7:21

That's a good thing, feel free to ask anything!
Нека људи уживају у стварима.
Let people enjoy things.


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