Funny false friends
I remember reading a bit about the dropping of the plural -s marker in popular Brazilian Portuguese, and it seemed to be originally due to the influence of indigenous languages with no grammatical number agreement, which caused the speakers to feel that a single plural marker is enough in each noun phrase, usually attached to the first word in it. It also explains the loss of the -m which distinguishes some third-person plural verb forms from their singular counterparts, contributing to a process not unlike the one which led English to shed person and number inflection in verbs almost entirely, relying on personal pronouns to convey that information:
[eu] canto --> eu canto
[tu] cantas --> você canta
[ele/ela] canta --> ele/ela canta
[nós] cantamos --> a gente canta
[vós] cantais --> vocês canta
[eles/elas] cantam --> eles/elas canta
I don't know about the loss of -s in particular, very frequently used words, but it could be due to idiosyncratic developments unrelated to phonetic evolution, like English yeah, which seems to come from the now archaic yea (pronounced like modern yay, but used differently), rather than being yes with the -s dropped.
There is, however, one single Portuguese dialect in which final s is dropped as a general phenomenon: barranquenho. Unsurprisingly, it's spoken in a remote corner of southern Portugal bordering Spanish Andalusia (where Spanish isn't really in the process of dropping syllable-final s—the process was completed centuries ago, but you can hear the consonant being hesitantly pronounced today, especially in formal speech, due to the greater prestige of northern Spanish dialects, where it was never lost). Barrancos has strong cultural ties to Encinasola, which lies on the other side of the border, but much closer than any other Portuguese town.
Erão seti irmõih e uma irmã. Oh irmõih sê forom a corrê o mundo, e a ficarom a ela sozinha.
Ela um dia foi a labá a um barranco ali perto; sê tirô a tôca que lebaba, e beio uma águia e se lha lebô. Ela saiu correndo detráh da águia dizendo:
- Águia, dá-mi a minha toquinha!
E a águia lhê dizia:
- Anda maih para dianti, que ondi ehtão oh teuh irmõih ta dô.
A águia foi e dexô caí a tôca encima duma choça, e a rapariga quando chegô lá, abriu a porta, entrô e se dexô ehtá ali até que bierom oh irmõih.
Elih nunca maih quiserom que ela se fossi embora, para quê ficassi ali tratando delih.
Doih ó trêh diah depoih a menina foi a buhcá acelgah, e se encontrô uma belha que lê disse:
- Nã baia tão longi, dexa que eu lebo aqui e tê dô.
À noiti quando bierom oh irmõih ehtiberom jantando, mah ela nã tinha bontadi, e não comeu. Ao otro dia quando sê lebantô ehtabam oh irmõih fêtoh em boi, e nã tebi maih remédio que leba-loh a comê pelo campo.
Passadoh doih ó trêh dia passô por um caminho dondi a biu o filho do rei, e lhe perguntô porque ehtaba ela ali, e ela le ehtebi contando o que lhe passaba. O príncipi então lhe disse que se dexassi ehtá ali subida numa árbori, que eli ía a lebá oh boih e boltaba a buhcá-la.
Debaxo da árbori ehtaba uma fonti ondi ela bia a sombra dela, e beio uma belha a buhcá água e ao bê a sombra disse:
Quem é tã guapa e tã formosa...
que bem por água aqui à fonti!
Partiu o cântaro e se foi a casa. Assim beio doih ó trêh diah, até que trôxe um de lata. E ehti já não era capaz de parti-lo; e tanto golpih le deu que a rapariga se riu.
A belha ao bê-la lhe disse:
- Que fazih aí subida?
E a rapariga lê ehtebi contando que ehtaba ehperando o principi. E a belha lhe disse:
- Baxa-te que tê pentêo para que tejah maih guapa quando eli benha!
A rapariga se feh caso, e quando a taba pentiando lê tanchô um alfineti na cabeça; se feh numa pomba e se foi boando; e depoih a belha se subiu encima da árbori e ehperô o príncipi.
Quando ehti beio e a biu, lê disse:
- Tã guapa que te dêxê e tã fêa que te tenh pohto!
E ela le rehpondeu:
Boçê tanto se tem tardado,
que o sol me tem torrado!
O príncipi então sa lebô, e se casô com ela.
Logo, depoih dê algum tempo aparecia a pomba ao jardim e cantaba assim:
- Como bai o príncipi com sua rica Môra?
- Bem, senhora!
- E o menino canta ó chora?
- Canta, senhora.
- E eu por ehtih campoh só, e oh mêh pobrih irmanitoh acariando cá e terra para o campo da Môra!
O príncipi ao ôbi ihto tratô de colhê a pomba, mah eli armaba o laço e a belha o tiraba. Até quê um dia a colheu.
Eli a trataba muinto bem, só a belha é que a trataba má. E um dia o príncipi le ehtaba passando a mão pela cabeça à pomba, e ao senti um bulto puchô, e tirô o alfineti.
A rapariga se feh formosa o mehmo que era, e le ehtebi contando tudo.
Depoih matarom a belha e se cazarom e ali ficarom bibendo.
http://www.galeon.com/lenguasdeextremad ... quenho.htm
(<spanish> = <portuguese> = <english>)
escritorio = escrivaninha = desk
oficina = escritório = office
taller = oficina = workshop
cubierto = talher = piece of cutlery
that was a rather short chain though (escribanía = escrivaninha = desk, and cubierto = coberto = covered). i remember thinking of longer ones, but i can't think of any off the top of my head right now
Hah, I described that chain myself in this very thread, a few pages back, except I mentioned the Spanish diminutive escribanita instead of escribanía. The former mimics the morphology of Portuguese escrivaninha—it just hasn't acquired an idiomatic meaning of its own, so its only possible sense is the analytic 'little female scribe'.
_________________
The red lake has been forgotten. A dust devil stuns you long enough to shroud forever those last shards of wisdom. The breeze rocking this forlorn wasteland whispers in your ears, “Não resta mais que uma sombra”.
yes (i had forgotten about verbs), and i guess constant contact with other languages was one of the reasons why it happened so thoroughly in english (even if the other languages weren't necessarily simpler, but were still gramatically different). i think it was probably a combination of factors though. i wonder how much of it came from archaic features and tendencies of the language brought from portugal (i have no idea where exactly in portugal most early settlers came from, for one thing)
i don't know enough to say anything (beyond speculation) about what caused what and when, but at least some of it has to do with phonetics. though i can't think of any example of a missing s sound in the middle of a word other than mesmo -> memo, so it could just be that i'm seeing separate patterns as a single one. the specific examples that come to mind are word-final s sounds that are vocalized as i, like três -> trei, dez -> déi, faz -> fai (which is mostly consistent, but is a simplification rather than a substitution, because that final -s/-z is already pronounced as -is in formal or semi-formal language)
come to think of it, there's está -> tá, and espera -> péra. but it probably doesn't count, because those are weak syllables
another consistent pattern is the simple past / 1st person / plural conjugation of -ar verbs: -emo instead of -amos (that's more specific to my regional dialect and completely archaic by now though. my grandfather still speaks like that, but he's literally almost a hundred years old). a classic example is the sentence "nói fumo e nói vortemo" (nós fomos e nós voltamos = we went and we came back). that final s is still dropped though ("nói[s] voltamo", which is still used interchangeably with "a gente voltô")
phew, that was hard to read . i could understand almost all words, but i couldn't follow the story because of the effort of reading it word by word. i am surprised though that i could understand almost all of it. do you know if there's any "genetic" relationship between barranquenho pronunciation and brazilian pronunciation or if it's just coincidence? i noticed the verb endings in particular (corrê, tirô, dô), and also the final -e pronounced as -i (ficássi, príncipi). hm and there's also syllable-final l -> r. i don't suppose my regional dialect actually came from barraquenho, but this really doesn't seem like coincidence anyway. interesting!
hm i haven't gotten around to reading all the posts here yet, i hadn't seen that. i guess it's the kind of thing you inevitably run into when you set out to study the other language. i haven't checked the etymology of escrivaninha yet (i only learned that the word escribanía existed while i was writing my previous post), but my guess is it's not really a diminutive
that sequence that i posted also led me to wonder about the word(s) taller/talher. "are they really the same word?". apparently not. one comes from (french) atelier, while the other comes from (italian) tagliere. surely those words are related though, right? apparently not. tagliere supposedly comes from (latin) talio = cut, while atelier supposedly comes from (latin) hasta/hastella = [small] spear. and so (french) atelier = workshop happens to be cognate with (spanish) astilla = splinter
then it got me thinking about (english) entail+retail and (portuguese) entalhe+retalho = engraving+scrap. "are those words related?". it turns out that yes, ultimately they have the exact same etymologies (despite the completely different meanings), and they all come from talio
btw, if i'm looking for etymologies of spanish words, what dictionary would you recommend? (for portuguese, there is absolutely no doubt: it's the houaiss. it's one of the wonders of the modern world)
Gosh. Are you a Romance language specialist by profession, Spider?
Have heard that the Spanish spoken in the New World (and thats a VAST stretch of the planet:from the USA south to Cape Horn) comes mainly from the dialect of one small region in Spain (I guess where most of the Conquistadors came from). Like one valley in one province in the old country.
Nevertheless there are dialect differences,especially in slang, among Latin American countries.
In Peru a "tambeau"Sp? is a "country inn". But in neighboring Ecuador its "a house of ill repute".
In some countries "expectar para una jua jua" means "waiting for a bus" in others the phrase means "expecting a baby".
meanwhile, in portuguese, "peru" means "turkey" (the bird. also occasionally used as a euphemism for penis). i kid you not
that frickin bird has traveled the world! and the funny thing is that it's not originally from west asia or south america (or south asia, for that matter. french "dinde" <- "d'inde" = "from india", from back when they still used the word "indies" to talk about the americas). it's originally from north america
----
which reminds me of the classic case of the "ford pinto". apparently they had the nerve to try and sell it in brazil without changing the name. nobody wanted to buy it. well, it figures. in portuguese, "pinto" means "chick" (again, the bird). weird, but not that big a deal, i guess. but it's also a very common euphemism for penis...
or maybe it's just urban legend that they did try to sell it like that, i don't know. but i like to think it's true
i'm bored today. this topic is fun
english -- english:
[en] pharaohs -- [en] faroes = faroe islands
english -- spanish:
[en] once -- [es] once = eleven
english -- portuguese:
[en] pharaoh -- [pt] ferro = iron
[en] faroes -- [pt] faróis = lighthouses
[en] best -- [pt] besta = stupid
[en] corn -- [pt] corno = cuckold
[en] why? -- [pt] uai! = i don't get it
[en] legal -- [pt] legal = legal, but the usual meaning in spoken language is "nice/cool"
[en] pest -- [pt] peste = plague
[en] plague -- [pt] praga = pest (also the capital of the czech republic)
[en] kkk -- [pt] kkk (netspeak, "kah kah kah") = facetious laugh
[en] dst -- [pt] dst = std
italian -- portuguese:
[it] sei = you are -- [pt] sei = i know
[it] so = i know -- [pt] sou = i am
[it] sai = you know -- [pt] sai = goes out
[it] mai = never -- [pt] mais = more, plus
[it] più = more, plus -- [pt] pio = bird's peep
[it] burro = butter -- [pt] burro = donkey, stupid
[it] salire = go up (or get on [a bus]) -- [pt] sair = get out
[it] scendere = go down (or get off [a bus]) -- [pt] ascender = go up
[it] la marca da bollo = the tax stamp -- [pt] a marca dá bolo = the brand gives cake
[it] testa = head -- [pt] testa = forehead
[it] cu = the letter q -- [pt] cu = butthole
[it] roba = things, stuff -- [pt] roupa = clothes
[it] calcio = kick, football -- [pt] cálcio = calcium
[it] sinistra = left side -- [pt] sinistra = sinister
[it] birra = beer -- [pt] birra = tantrum
[it] caldo = hot -- [pt] caldo = soup
[it] brucia = it burns -- [pt] bruxa = witch
[it] ciao = hello -- [pt] tchau = bye
spanish -- portuguese:
[es] hoy = today -- [pt] oi = hi!
[es] borracha = drunk woman -- [pt] borracha = rubber
[es] borrar = erase -- [pt] borrar = smudge
[es] embarazada = pregnant -- [pt] embaraçada = tangled, embarrassed
[es] oso = bear -- [pt] osso = bone
[es] alejado = distanced -- [pt] aleijado = cripple
[es] rojo = red -- [pt] roxo = purple
[es] rubio = blond -- [pt] ruivo = redhead
[es] saco = bag, coat -- [pt] saco = bag, ballsack
[es] botar = throw away -- [pt] botar = put
[es] pegar = glue together -- [pt] pegar = grab
[es] colar = strain (through a strainer) -- [pt] colar = glue together
[es] novia = girlfriend -- [pt] noiva = fiancée
[es] cerrar = to close -- [pt] serrar = to saw
[es] fechar = to date (as in "carbon dating") -- [pt] fechar = to close
[es] propina = tip -- [pt] propina = bribe
[es] exquisito = very good -- [pt] esquisito = weird
[es] engrasado = oiled -- [pt] engraçado = funny
[es] gracioso = funny -- [pt] gracioso = gracious
[es] zurdo = left-handed -- [pt] surdo = deaf
[es] estufa = stove -- [pt] estufa = greenhouse
[es] faro = lighthouse -- [pt] faro = sense of smell
[es] hediondo = stinky -- [pt] hediondo = heinous
[es] latido = heartbeat -- [pt] latido = dog's bark
[es] mala = bad -- [pt] mala = suitcase
[es] más = more, plus -- [pt] más = bad
[es] pelado = bald -- [pt] pelado = naked
[es] zapatilla = sneakers -- [pt] sapatilha = ballet shoes
[es] tapa = lid -- [pt] tapa = slap
[es] presunto = supposed -- [pt] presunto = ham
[es] rato = short while -- [pt] rato = mouse, rat
[es] mano = hand -- [pt] mano = bro
[es] doce = twelve -- [pt] doce = sweet
catalan -- portuguese:
[ca] pau = paul -- [pt] pau = wooden pole, vulgar slang for penis
(i remember sportscasters pronouncing "pau gasol" as "paul gasol". good call)
not exactly a false friend, but it's a funny one anyway: the spanish word postre = dessert really doesn't make me feel like eating. it instantly evokes two portuguese words: podre = rotten, and bosta = s**t...
unfortunate. just give me the damn pudding, don't ask me if i want postre!
[english] mare -- [italian] mare (same spelling) = [french] mer (same pronunciation) = sea
[english] mar -- [portuguese/spanish] mar (same spelling, same pronunciation) = sea
just one more before i go to sleep...
[english] some say so -- [portuguese] são sem som = they have no sound (literally "are without sound")
not quite the same (because of nasal vowels), but if you imagine that the person speaking has a cold, it's intelligible, especially because all those three nasal vowels are diphthongs (unlike regular non-nasal portuguese vowels). the word "some" only has a monophthong, but the m sound compensates for it (it's murky waters when you get to nasal semivowels... and the "uh" sound is always nasal in brazilian portuguese, so "uh" and "un" sound like the same thing)
i also like the alliteration, and the way how it goes 4 3 2 and 3 3 3 letters. too bad it's not spelled "sam sem som"
though come to think of it, i can add a fourth word:
[english] sing "some say so" -- [portuguese] sim, são sem som = yes, they have no sound
so now you're singing that some say so, but they have no sound (and maybe neither do you, if you're plural )
[english] mar -- [portuguese/spanish] mar (same spelling, same pronunciation) = sea
Are you talking about "false friends", or "real friends"?
In English "mare" means a female horse, except when applied to the Moon, in which case it means "dark areas that look like seas". Mar means to deface/damage something, and is related to the "mare" in "nightmare". The "mare" for the moon is the Latin word for sea which is the ancestor of the above similar French, Italian,Spanish, and Portugese words for "sea". And also where the English words "marine", and "maritime" come from. In Dutch "mir" means "sea", and so does "zee" .
false friends. i meant the proper english word, not the latin loanword (i wasn't aware that it's used in english)
i found it interesting that equivalent words between italian and french (mare=mer=sea) are false friends with the same english word (mare=female horse) for different reasons (italian mare has the same spelling as english mare, while french mer has roughly the same pronunciation as english mare), and then the equivalent spanish/portuguese word (mar=sea) is false friends with another english word (mar=deface) because of both spelling and pronunciation (which is unusual between english and spanish/portuguese)
it gets confusing, doesn't it?
hm, i wonder if dutch mir / german meer was a loanword at some point or if it simply shares a very old common ancestor
that frickin bird has traveled the world! and the funny thing is that it's not originally from west asia or south america (or south asia, for that matter. french "dinde" <- "d'inde" = "from india", from back when they still used the word "indies" to talk about the americas). it's originally from north america
----
which reminds me of the classic case of the "ford pinto". apparently they had the nerve to try and sell it in brazil without changing the name. nobody wanted to buy it. well, it figures. in portuguese, "pinto" means "chick" (again, the bird). weird, but not that big a deal, i guess. but it's also a very common euphemism for penis...
or maybe it's just urban legend that they did try to sell it like that, i don't know. but i like to think it's true
Turkeys DO come from the New World. So it makes a lot more sense to call one of the birds a "peru" than to call it a "turkey".
When I was 14 I read in Reader's Digest that when Europeans first got the birds shortly after the discovery of America they assumed "that anything exotic and new must come from the east" so they gave the new birds names in their languages like "chicken of India", or "chicken of China", but the English were more conservative and called it "the chicken of Turkey".
But the article didnt mention that apparently the Portugese got it basically right and named them after Peru.
But the Readers Digest article might have been mistaken about the French "Chicken of India". you're probably right that they were calling it "the chicken of the Indies". When Columbus stumbled upon the islands of the Carribean he thought he was in (what we now call) Indonesia which they then called "the spice islands", or "the Indies". When Europeans finally realized that Columbus's "Indies" were on the opposite side of the globe from the other Indies they started to differentiate between "the East Indies" and "the West Indies". But the new big funny looking "chickens from the Indies" had probably already introduced to France by that time.
according to the dictionary app i have on my ipad (i'm not sure what the real source is), it's even more complicated and confusing than that, and it has to do with the guinea fowl (which, funny enough, in portuguese is known as "angola fowl"). this is from the etymology entry for the word "turkey":
about the word "peru", apparently the misconception existed (that peru was where the bird came from), but it was based on the habit of using the name peru to refer to all the hispanic lands in the americas (just like in brazil it's common for people to refer to lebanese immigrants as -- guess what -- turks )
about the word "peru", apparently the misconception existed (that peru was where the bird came from), but it was based on the habit of using the name peru to refer to all the hispanic lands in the americas (just like in brazil it's common for people to refer to lebanese immigrants as -- guess what -- turks )
Wow!
That IS complitcated.
But interesting. Yes...it was the Aztecs of Mexico (not the Incas of Peru) who first introduced the Turkey to Europeans.
Interesting that the New World foul got from Spain to the rest of western Europe the long way through Muslim North Africa and then through Turkey- rather than going directly up the Atlantic seaboard of Europe to France and England. Notice that the turkey eating at Christmas custom became established in England by the late 1500's. So when the Pilgrims had their famous feast in post 1620 in the colonies - turkies were already old hat for the English colonists. You tend to assume that the local Massachusettes Indians introduced them to turkies.
Next mystery:
How did guinea pigs (which really do come from the Andes Mountains region around Peru) come to be called "guinea pigs"? Not only are they not pigs, but "Guinea" is on the west coast of Africa!
How did guinea pigs (which really do come from the Andes Mountains region around Peru) come to be called "guinea pigs"? Not only are they not pigs, but "Guinea" is on the west coast of Africa!
that one seems to be less complicated but more of a mystery. because... yeah, how come?
the two possible explanations that the same dictionary gives are these:
neither one seems terribly convincing. and, no surprise, the guinea pig is known as "little pig from india" (porquinho da índia) in portuguese. according to wikipedia, they're called "pigs" possibly because they were kept in "pig pens" in ships. not terribly convincing either
another one, pretty confusing if you're not paying attention:
(english) ingenuity -- (portuguese) ingenuidade = naiveté
the correct translation would be engenhosidade instead
there's a 'french guinee' too, but the [] is called 'cochon d'inde' in f , indian pigs and i never knew but it's food too ,
also there's the 'canard de barbarie' for the more meaty duck - (barbary for any far away place)
Although the Muscovy duck is a tropical bird, it adapts well to cooler climates, thriving in weather as cold as −12 °C (10 °F) and able to survive even colder conditions. In general, Barbary duck is the term used for C. moschata in a culinary context. The domestic breed, Cairina moschata forma domestica, is commonly known in Spanish as the pato criollo ("creole duck"). They have been bred since pre-Columbian times by Native Americans and are heavier and less able to fly long distances than the wild subspecies. Their plumage color is also more variable. Other names for the domestic breed in Spanish are pato casero ("backyard duck") and pato mudo ("mute duck").
-but they can drift off nontheless
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