Lithuanian sounds like...

Varaleiva
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Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Varaleiva » 2015-07-10, 15:09

Strange thing, on youtube some people think that lithuanian sounds like:

Albanian
Bulgarian
"Haha it sounded like a mix between portguese and russian i dont know"
Hungarian
Latvian
Portoguese
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
"some romance language"
"some slavic language"
"something Slavic"
"Ukrainian"


– what you think and heard about that?

Varaleiva
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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Varaleiva » 2015-07-10, 18:47

"Lithuanian sounds like an "hybrid" language, somewhat Slavic, Finnish, Romance or Greek..."

"I have observed Baltic and Lituanian people talking, listened to Lituanian songs and watched news and videos over several years now and so far Lituanian to me sounds a bit like the following languages: Chinese (sometimes), Tchetchen, Tchec, Croatian, Espanish, French, German, Greco, Kurd, Latin, Portugues, Serbian, Turco-arabic, Ukrainian. Every time different. While it only sounds a bit alike to my untrained ears, but I think it is quite a beautiful language and I give it 7 out of 10 for the sound of it. It is definitely a unique language in the Indo-European language group and seemingly has similarities not only to Slavic, but also to Latin and Germanic languages, yet most of it is just unlike any other, apart from Latvian, an original language,and seems very archaic in form. I have now studied linguistics a little bit and I think that Lituania language is a transitional Centum-Satem language. This is my rather amateur observaçion and nothing more. I apologise if I offended anyone."

"Lithuanian is actually somewhat related to Greek, not Albanian:
Image
Lithuanian is the closest living relative of Ancient Thracian."

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby linguoboy » 2015-07-10, 20:41

like Old High Latvian
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Levike » 2015-07-10, 20:47

To me it sounds like an Eastern Slavic language.

I can't make any difference between Lithuanian and Belorussian for example.

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Varaleiva » 2015-07-11, 4:30


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Lumilintu
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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Lumilintu » 2015-07-11, 16:47

I don't know why, but sometimes it sounds more like Latvian and sometimes it sounds more like Russian or something Slavic, depending on who's talking. :oops:

Let's hope my Lithuanian friend does not read that. :whistle: :oops:

Where on youtube did you find this?
Image native mother tongue | Image wannabe mother tongue
Image speaking | Image Image Image studying | Image some day...

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Varaleiva » 2015-07-11, 17:05

Lumilintu wrote:...
Where on youtube did you find this?

There:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmgpo0ZqdRU

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Liootas » 2015-08-12, 19:47

Varaleiva wrote:Lituanian to me sounds a bit like the following languages: Chinese (sometimes), Tchetchen, Tchec, Croatian, Espanish, French, German, Greco, Kurd, Latin, Portugues, Serbian, Turco-arabic, Ukrainian.


Well, I'm a Lithuanian and I must say that Latvian sounds quite odd to me, just like the bunch of languages above :D Tbh I'm not good at recognizing languages.

There's a funny game The Great Language Game. You can try it and see how good you are at guessing the language. Personally, I mixed Polish and an african language... :mrgreen:

http://greatlanguagegame.com/
[flag=]lt[/flag] native
[flag=]en[/flag] B2/C1
[flag=]fr[/flag] B2
[flag=]es[/flag] A2/B1
Picked up some [flag=]eo[/flag] and [flag=]ru[/flag]
Interested in linguistics and conlangs:)

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby エヴァルダス » 2015-10-19, 20:20

The topic is old, but hopefully anyone will be interested. I’ve just made some fun research and got some interesting results.

I tried to find out how many Lithuanian phonemes have (near) perfect matches in Latvian, Russian, Spanish, English, French and German. This would basically indicate a potential foreing accent level trying to speak Lithuanian, as well as how much a person would struggle trying to learn Lithuanian.

But the phonemic match count means very little by itself, because some sounds are more common than others. For instance, it’s great that the Latvian ʽdz’ perfectly matches the Lithuanian one in a neutral position, but the affricate is almost never used in Lithuanian. Therefore it would be more accurate to include the phoneme frequency as well. Luckily, the research has been done and available online.

The percentage would indicate how many Lithuanian phonemes would a foreigner be able to pronounce accurately without any training.

My results were as follows:

Spanish – 18%
Latvian – 41%
English – 45%
French – 47%
German – 53%
Russian – 81%

This basically means that Lithuanian, spoken by a Spanish person, would be some kind of gibberish; and phonologically, Lithuanian is indeed an Eastern Slavonic language.

Koko

Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Koko » 2015-10-20, 6:56

Lithuanian when I first heard it sounded like a strange combination of Swedish and Russian, with a small dash of Italian. But when you hear it more, it begins to sound more unique. :D

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Varaleiva » 2016-02-16, 4:17

エヴァルダス wrote:...
and phonologically, Lithuanian is indeed an Eastern Slavonic language.

No.
In the past, Lithuanian language was more widely used in Eastern Europe than it is now (by hydronyms, archeology, history and genetic data, a well-known fact, maybe not for everyone...), in addition, the Lithuanian language is much older than the Slavic languages (recognized that the Lithuanian language is most archaic among Indo-European languages).
So if you already love the label, it should be: "Lithuanish Eastern Slavic languages“.

uzferry

Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby uzferry » 2016-02-20, 14:16

Varaleiva wrote: in addition, the Lithuanian language is much older than the Slavic languages (recognized that the Lithuanian language is most archaic among Indo-European languages).
So if you already love the label, it should be: "Lithuanish Eastern Slavic languages“.


Wut? What does prevailing resemblance to the Indo-European has to do with the language being old? That only means Lithuanian has been isolated for a longer time and hasn't changed that much.
Also, little is known about the Slavic-Baltic relationship, but usually researchers suggest that both languages have the same ancestor - Balto-slavic language* and that at some they began evolving separately from each other*. So I don't really understand what you meant by Lithuanian being "much older than the Slavic languages".


*Image

*Image

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Varaleiva » 2016-02-20, 15:27

uzferry wrote:
Varaleiva wrote: in addition, the Lithuanian language is much older than the Slavic languages (recognized that the Lithuanian language is most archaic among Indo-European languages).
So if you already love the label, it should be: "Lithuanish Eastern Slavic languages“.


Wut? What does prevailing resemblance to the Indo-European has to do with the language being old? That only means Lithuanian has been isolated for a longer time and hasn't changed that much.
Also, little is known about the Slavic-Baltic relationship, but usually researchers suggest that both languages have the same ancestor - Balto-slavic language* and that at some they began evolving separately from each other*. So I don't really understand what you meant by Lithuanian being "much older than the Slavic languages".


*Image

*Image



I am sorry for the outdated theories, the facts do not support them. Neither historical nor archaeological nor language, nor the most recent genetic studies. The facts say something else, that ancient Lithuanians were active players in the European and Asian history from ancient times. The ancient Lithuanians were not isolated, look at a map, at the ancient trafic by rivers from Northern Europe to the South. Historic name of the balts is the gudai, getai. So the tale on self-accidental Lithuanian language archaic and is only a fairy tale. Lithuanian language close to the antique Aryan language because it is a direct descendant of that language.

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Sol Invictus » 2016-02-20, 17:59

It's not like ancestral language just magically split one day and all daughter languages imediately became what they are classified as now - Balto-Slavic probably was last common ancestor of all Baltic languages, while common Slavic seems to have existed at the same time as Latvian and Lithuanian started to diverge, which kind of makes any modern Slavic languages newer. Which has nothing to do with how much features of ancestral languages were preserved (or not) by daughter languages and even high amount of preservation doesn't make a daughter language same as ancestral language - here's some text in PIE for reality check. And also none of that has anything to do with modern Lithuanian being phonologically simmilar to modern Russian, which was the reason why it was argued that Lithuanian is "Slavic". Seems rather probable seeing how the accent Lithuanians tend to have when speaking in foreign languages is very similar to soft Russian accent.

Varaleiva wrote:Lithuanian language close to the antique Aryan language because it is a direct descendant of that language.


Speaking of outdated...

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Varaleiva » 2016-02-21, 7:12

Sol Invictus wrote:
Varaleiva wrote:Lithuanian language close to the antique Aryan language because it is a direct descendant of that language.


Speaking of outdated...


Balts, Goths and Aryans. A good example of non-compliance the modern terminology and historical facts. Politics, not science.
"Balts" history does not exist, it is an invented name. In this way, the ancient Lithuanian history has been deleted.

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Varaleiva » 2016-02-21, 7:18


This can be seen as a joke, nothing more.

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby エヴァルダス » 2016-02-23, 11:45

Sol Invictus wrote:Balto-Slavic probably was last common ancestor of all Baltic languages


From what I know and have read, this view was perpetuated by two famous slavists, but it defies common sense. This theory is based on a bold assumption that Prussian is equidistant to both Eastern Baltic and Slavonic languages. Take a look at a simple mathematical calculation based on cognates.



The Germanic accent in this video is atrocious. A bit sad that these videos are being done mostly by English speakers. The same text spoken by a Latvian would be 5 times more accurate.

which was the reason why it was argued that Lithuanian is "Slavic". Seems rather probable seeing how the accent Lithuanians tend to have when speaking in foreign languages is very similar to soft Russian accent.


The more correct way to express this is "Lituanian phonology is Eastern Slavonic-like".

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Sol Invictus » 2016-02-23, 13:52

エヴァルダス wrote:Take a look at a simple mathematical calculation based on cognates.

After writing my previous post I watched some videos related to the one I linked, by pure coincidence several of them very convincingly argued that the research this image is from is complete BS - it was done to test methods used by biologists on linguistics and models they came up with don't match with even well known facts

The Germanic accent in this video is atrocious. A bit sad that these videos are being done mostly by English speakers. The same text spoken by a Latvian would be 5 times more accurate


He had a revised version on his chanell, except in it he talked about PIE phonology at lenght, instead of just reading the story also given what was said there I seriously doubt we could do better

The more correct way to express this is "Lituanian phonology is Eastern Slavonic-like".


That would be the accent of Eastern Slavic proto-language, I have absolutely no way of knowing how that would sound :P

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby エヴァルダス » 2016-02-23, 16:09

the research this image is from is complete BS


They claim the research was not genuine and was done scientifically incorrectly? I would simply say the scheme represents well the similarity between languages, but has a restricted application in other fields of linguistics.

My argument still stands – all the Baltic languages are very related with each other and not so much with other Slavonic languages. The scheme presented by uzferry is correct and the new theory that the Balto-Slavic group has three branches instead of two has clearly not reached a concensus yet.

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Re: Lithuanian sounds like...

Postby Sol Invictus » 2016-02-23, 22:11

エヴァルダス wrote:
the research this image is from is complete BS


They claim the research was not genuine and was done scientifically incorrectly?

No, but conclusions they drew from the data were incorrect.
I would simply say the scheme represents well the similarity between languages, but has a restricted application in other fields of linguistics.

We were arguing about common ancestry and that is exactly what that research claims to show, it might show simmilarity between words in reality, but such simmilarity doesn't neccessarily prove common origin, it might as well result, for example, from languages in the same geographical region borrowing common words from the same foreign languages and each other. And also having three branches wouldn't mean that they all are very different from each other, but that common ancestor for two groups that is significantly different from an earlier common ancestor of all three groups cannot be reconstructed. Here's some reconstructed Balto-Slavic


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