Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby Lauren » 2014-07-14, 3:24

No, I mean it's tainted by English.
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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2014-07-14, 3:28

Lowena wrote:No, I mean it's tainted by English.
Yeah, and I mean saying something is tainted is rather subjective. Every language to ever exist has been influenced by others. Why complain that Irish is tainted by English, but not that English is tainted by French?
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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby Lauren » 2014-07-14, 6:30

mōdgethanc wrote:
Lowena wrote:No, I mean it's tainted by English.
Yeah, and I mean saying something is tainted is rather subjective. Every language to ever exist has been influenced by others. Why complain that Irish is tainted by English, but not that English is tainted by French?

I have complained about English being tainted by French on this forum in the past. :lol: Maybe not on this account, but I know I have. :silly: But the discussion here has nothing to do with French, so I didn't bring it up here.
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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby loqu » 2014-07-14, 7:58

Lowena wrote:I have complained about English being tainted by French on this forum in the past. :lol: Maybe not on this account, but I know I have. :silly: But the discussion here has nothing to do with French, so I didn't bring it up here.

I do remember when you were obsessed with Anglish!

For me that video doesn't sound anything like English either. It resembles more Dutch in the sound, but then again, not at all in the vocabulary. It's like the astounding similarity between Greek and Spanish that Lowena pointed out.
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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby arabarra » 2014-07-14, 9:36

But I do also think that Modern Greek sounds a lot like Spanish. I like Greek, but not the sound of it.


... inducing that Lowena doesn't like the sound of Spanish... :) oh, well, a question of taste...

But I am seriously amazed about people thinking Irish sounds English-like (at least in that video). Everything is subjective, right, but if someone tells me "yeah, I always found that squirrels totally look like elephants", well, this is an opinion he's entitled to, but I'm also entitled to find it surprising.

When I overhear strangers talking in Greek, for some seconds my brain always considers the possibility of the language they're using being Spanish (and I am a native Speaker). I see no way I could overhear Irish and mistake it for English for a second.

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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby Levike » 2014-07-14, 10:33

Maybe you heard it enough times to catch its sound.

But I only heard it like once or twice on YouTube, out of curiosity.
Before Unilang I didn't even know Irish exists.

What I'm saying is that to the untrained ear many things appear to be similar.

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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby TeneReef » 2014-07-14, 11:30

Basque sounds like Spanish for the same reason Guarani sounds like Spanish, Molise Croatian like Italian and Burgenland Croatian like Austrian German.
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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2014-07-14, 19:54

Lowena wrote:I have complained about English being tainted by French on this forum in the past. :lol: Maybe not on this account, but I know I have. :silly: But the discussion here has nothing to do with French, so I didn't bring it up here.
It's just that "tainted" is a value judgment and the sort of thing that linguists try to avoid. Not that you and I are linguists of course, but I try to avoid such biased terms when discussing languages.
loqu wrote:For me that video doesn't sound anything like English either. It resembles more Dutch in the sound, but then again, not at all in the vocabulary. It's like the astounding similarity between Greek and Spanish that Lowena pointed out.
Not that astounding. They have the same basic vowel system that's found in half the world's languages and then they both happen to have a lot of voiced fricatives and palatals. Neither has a lot of rare sounds as well. Essentially, it's because the same two processes (lenition and palatalization, both of which are very common) were important in the history of both.
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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby Lauren » 2014-07-15, 2:51

mōdgethanc wrote:
Lowena wrote:I have complained about English being tainted by French on this forum in the past. :lol: Maybe not on this account, but I know I have. :silly: But the discussion here has nothing to do with French, so I didn't bring it up here.
It's just that "tainted" is a value judgment and the sort of thing that linguists try to avoid. Not that you and I are linguists of course, but I try to avoid such biased terms when discussing languages.

You know me; I'm never one for sticking to the norm. :)
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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby canchito » 2014-07-25, 11:15

Levike wrote: To me it still sounds somewhat English-ish.


For someone that isn't a native speaker and hears Irish speakers of English and then hears Irish language they do sound like the same language. The accent of Irish is the same when Irish people speak English or Irish.

Levike wrote: Apart from this I also always get the impression
that Greek sounds like Spanish


I can speak Spanish fluently but am not a native speaker and whenever I overhear Greek speakers I always think they're speaking Spanish and wonder why I can't understand them. I think its because they have the th sound as in Castillian Spanish.

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Re: Why does Basque sound like Spanish?

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-07-25, 16:29

canchito wrote:
Levike wrote: To me it still sounds somewhat English-ish.


For someone that isn't a native speaker and hears Irish speakers of English and then hears Irish language they do sound like the same language. The accent of Irish is the same when Irish people speak English or Irish.


Which comes from Irish, so the real comparison shouldn't be Irish and Irish-English, but Irish and English-English, which I don't think sound the same at all.


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