mboy
Liberal
Listen. Think. Speak.
Posts: 23,706
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Post by mboy on Oct 30, 2015 11:44:11 GMT
There were also quite a few Arabs - notable examples are Carlos Menem (of Syrian ancestry) I didnt know that... |
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Post by Merseymike on Oct 30, 2015 12:35:22 GMT
The ultimate in sheer craziness has to be India. But the crazy driving countries are the ones with colour, life, verve. So unlike Germany or Sweden. You're not looking hard enough. Germany is marvellous. Sweden is admittedly crap. It's OK. Doesn't move me though and I really couldn't live there. They all wait for the little man to go green before crossing the road. Even if there's no traffic. That's weird. |
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Post by Andrew_S on Oct 30, 2015 18:25:01 GMT
The majority of Argentines are of Italian ancestry. The most obvious manifestation of this is the accent - to non-Spanish speakers it sounds as if they are speaking Italian - and the dialect which is probably more different from standard Spanish than any other. Lots of Italian words are used - such as 'chau' (ciao) in places of 'hasta luego', plus there are multiple grammatical differences. The high standard of pizza and ice cream and widespread availability of fresh pasta are other examples. Of course the immigrants came from many other places - you will find plenty of people with German, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Croatian names etc. The common factor is that many of the immigrants were from regions on the poorest fringes of Europe - Galicia, the Basque country, Sicily, Naples, the Balkans, Ireland, even Wales. There were also quite a few Arabs - notable examples are Carlos Menem (of Syrian ancestry) and the Rodriguez Saa brothers are of Palestinian ancestry. Apparently there are some Argentines of Spanish descent who maintain that the country started to go down the pan when the Italians arrived! It maybe a stupid question but I wonder why Italian didn't supersede Spanish as the national language. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Oct 30, 2015 20:47:24 GMT
Not a stupid question at all Andy. The reason is primarily because Italian as we know it is really Tuscan with some changes. Most Italian immigrants of the time spoke nothing like a coherent standard Italian, and therefore Spanish easily assimilated them.
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Oct 30, 2015 22:02:11 GMT
I have never had much interest in Spanish, despite being a keen Romanticist. But reading a lot of this has made me fancy giving it a go.
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Oct 30, 2015 22:34:17 GMT
Not a stupid question at all Andy. The reason is primarily because Italian as we know it is really Tuscan with some changes. Most Italian immigrants of the time spoke nothing like a coherent standard Italian, and therefore Spanish easily assimilated them. My 88-year old grandmother, born in Piemonte, speaks Italian as her third language. Piemontese, English, Italian. She only really speaks Italian due to having to speak to other Italian-born neighbours- and they have largely now died off, including my grandfather. (Her road used to be a mini-Little-Italy, as demonstrated by the marble tiling in ever second front garden- my grandparents bought the house from a Swiss-Italian family in the 80s. Previously they lived in another mini-Little Italy near the Oval- I remember being dragged to the Scalabrini Brothers Italian church on the Brixton Road) My mother also speaks Piemontese as her first language, despite growing up in Kennington. Italian is my first language. Round the home, we spoke an entertaining mix of Italian, English and Piemontese- usually in the same sentence! My husband is from Blackburn and has a similar linguistic background- speaking Hungarian and English (with a Lancastrian accent) at home. Together we have 'interesting' conversations that are utterly incomprehensible to outsiders. My Hungarian is very limited, other than reading a menu- which I can pretty much completely understand. |
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Oct 30, 2015 22:52:14 GMT
Incidentally, my mother researched her side of the family tree as far back as the 1800s through parish records and such like. There were plenty of my family who emigrated to Argentina between the 1890s and 1910s. It wasn't just Sicilians and Sardinians who emigrated to Argentina- those from supposedly richer regions were also involved. But of course rural northern Italy is not the industrial heartland that the regional averages suggest!
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Oct 30, 2015 23:13:11 GMT
Incidentally, my mother researched her side of the family tree as far back as the 1800s through parish records and such like. There were plenty of my family who emigrated to Argentina between the 1890s and 1910s. It wasn't just Sicilians and Sardinians who emigrated to Argentina- those from supposedly richer regions were also involved. But of course rural northern Italy is not the industrial heartland that the regional averages suggest! Brazil is a curious exception in particular, as its Italians were overwhelmingly Venetian, and a Venetian dialect is still heard in Rio Grande do Sul today. A lot of Occitan speakers ended up in Argentina too. |
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Oct 30, 2015 23:35:10 GMT
Not a stupid question at all Andy. The reason is primarily because Italian as we know it is really Tuscan with some changes. Most Italian immigrants of the time spoke nothing like a coherent standard Italian, and therefore Spanish easily assimilated them. My 88-year old grandmother, born in Piemonte, speaks Italian as her third language. Piemontese, English, Italian. She only really speaks Italian due to having to speak to other Italian-born neighbours- and they have largely now died off, including my grandfather. (Her road used to be a mini-Little-Italy, as demonstrated by the marble tiling in ever second front garden- my grandparents bought the house from a Swiss-Italian family in the 80s. Previously they lived in another mini-Little Italy near the Oval- I remember being dragged to the Scalabrini Brothers Italian church on the Brixton Road) My mother also speaks Piemontese as her first language, despite growing up in Kennington. Italian is my first language. Round the home, we spoke an entertaining mix of Italian, English and Piemontese- usually in the same sentence! My husband is from Blackburn and has a similar linguistic background- speaking Hungarian and English (with a Lancastrian accent) at home. Together we have 'interesting' conversations that are utterly incomprehensible to outsiders. My Hungarian is very limited, other than reading a menu- which I can pretty much completely understand. In all that, I failed to mention my father, who speaks Italian with a stronger South Down accent than he speaks English. |
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Post by johnloony on Oct 31, 2015 3:45:05 GMT
My mother (who is almost as interested in languages as I am (she lived in Germany for 3 years, and also speaks French)) was learning Spanish in the early 1980s. Then, when I got interested in Italian in the late 1980s, she decided to learn it as well. But I think that she soon regretted doing so because it is sufficiently similar to Spanish that she was always confused between the two.
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Post by Ghyl Tarvoke on Oct 31, 2015 19:48:21 GMT
The majority of Argentines are of Italian ancestry. The most obvious manifestation of this is the accent - to non-Spanish speakers it sounds as if they are speaking Italian - and the dialect which is probably more different from standard Spanish than any other. Lots of Italian words are used - such as 'chau' (ciao) in places of 'hasta luego', plus there are multiple grammatical differences. The high standard of pizza and ice cream and widespread availability of fresh pasta are other examples. Of course the immigrants came from many other places - you will find plenty of people with German, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Croatian names etc. The common factor is that many of the immigrants were from regions on the poorest fringes of Europe - Galicia, the Basque country, Sicily, Naples, the Balkans, Ireland, even Wales. There were also quite a few Arabs - notable examples are Carlos Menem (of Syrian ancestry) and the Rodriguez Saa brothers are of Palestinian ancestry. Apparently there are some Argentines of Spanish descent who maintain that the country started to go down the pan when the Italians arrived! It maybe a stupid question but I wonder why Italian didn't supersede Spanish as the national language. For the same reason there aren't large parts of the United States which speak German, or Ukranian isn't one of the two official languages of Alberta. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Nov 8, 2015 19:13:17 GMT
Brazil is a curious exception in particular, as its Italians were overwhelmingly Venetian, and a Venetian dialect is still heard in Rio Grande do Sul today. A lot of Occitan speakers ended up in Argentina too. I believe that several historic dialects of German - no longer spoken in Germany itself - have been preserved in Brazil too. Yes, Pomeranian in particular. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2015 19:40:02 GMT
Not a stupid question at all Andy. The reason is primarily because Italian as we know it is really Tuscan with some changes. Most Italian immigrants of the time spoke nothing like a coherent standard Italian, and therefore Spanish easily assimilated them. My 88-year old grandmother, born in Piemonte, speaks Italian as her third language. Piemontese, English, Italian. She only really speaks Italian due to having to speak to other Italian-born neighbours- and they have largely now died off, including my grandfather. (Her road used to be a mini-Little-Italy, as demonstrated by the marble tiling in ever second front garden- my grandparents bought the house from a Swiss-Italian family in the 80s. Previously they lived in another mini-Little Italy near the Oval- I remember being dragged to the Scalabrini Brothers Italian church on the Brixton Road) My mother also speaks Piemontese as her first language, despite growing up in Kennington. Italian is my first language. Round the home, we spoke an entertaining mix of Italian, English and Piemontese- usually in the same sentence! My husband is from Blackburn and has a similar linguistic background- speaking Hungarian and English (with a Lancastrian accent) at home. Together we have 'interesting' conversations that are utterly incomprehensible to outsiders. My Hungarian is very limited, other than reading a menu- which I can pretty much completely understand. Why did Italian become your first language with your mums being Piedmontese and your dad's being English, growing up in England? |
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Nov 8, 2015 20:36:06 GMT
I don't know why. We always spoke Italian at home. Even now, conversation drifts between languages mid-sentence.
It makes for some odd cross-language puns though. I always refer to a vacuum cleaner as the grapes. I'll let you work that one out.
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Post by iainbhx on Nov 8, 2015 20:50:18 GMT
I believe that several historic dialects of German - no longer spoken in Germany itself - have been preserved in Brazil too. Yes, Pomeranian in particular. Yes, well, most of Pommern is no longer in Germany just the dubiously Swedish bits remain. It is, however, the very much the minority form of German spoken there, around 3 million people speak Riograndenser Hunsrückisch which is sort of Moselle Franconian - however, in the written form it is clearly taking influences from Portuguese. Pomerano, which is the kissing cousin of Ostpommersch is spoken by about 300,000 people. There are still a few speakers of Ostpommersch in Germany, but they are mainly elderly. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Nov 11, 2015 23:18:52 GMT
Ah, the Peronists- demanding and receiving the adulation of the poor and the uneducated whilst stealing their union dues to put into foundations for the cult of the wife of the dear leader.
It was quite similar with Juan and Eva too...
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2015 22:35:27 GMT
Ah, the Peronists Fascists - demanding and receiving the adulation of the poor and the uneducated whilst stealing their union dues to put into foundations for the cult of the wife of the dear leader. It was quite similar with Juan and Eva too... As they are otherwise known. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Nov 22, 2015 14:06:15 GMT
The final opinion polls have shown Macri in the region of 10 points ahead of Scioli. Polls close at 18:00 local time (21:00 GMT) Here's hoping. |
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Post by Merseymike on Nov 22, 2015 15:23:47 GMT
Its a pretty uninspiring choice all told, but Macri is probably worse. In any case, he probably won't manage a full term. The Peronists al;ways make it back in the end.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Nov 22, 2015 21:12:44 GMT
Exit polls give it to Macri by a 10% lead.
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