Some sources (including the World Book Encyclopedia) report that until the 14th century Portuguese and Spanish were the same language, and when Portugal became a sepearate and unified monarchy - the languages split.
Other sources assert that the Vulgar Latin of Lusitania that became Portuguese was seperate from the ancestor of Spanish (i.e. Castillian) even in Roman times.
There is some info on the web - but its mainly a debate between hispanophiles and lusophiles of the “is not! :cp” … " is too! :cp " variety.
Does anyone have informed ideas on which of the two answers is closer to the truth?
I heard that Basque is the only language in Europe that is not connected in some way to the other languages. I am not hijacking your thread, just mentioning this because it means that Basque does not enter into your OP.
Both descended from Vulgar Latin, as did all of the Romance Languages. The Vulgar Latin in Lusitania and the Vulgar Latin in Hispania eventually grew to become dialectal variations on the Vulgar Latin of the Iberian Peninsula (which came with Roman colonists). Eventually both gained enough phonological and grammatical variations that both became mutually unintelligible and became their separate languages. Both are classified as Ibero-Romance.
Catalan, which shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portuguese and Spanish is not an Ibero-Romance language. It’s related to the languages of France, specifically the Langue D’oc branch.
-Portuguese language
–Brazilian Portuguese
–Galician
Southern Branch:
-Mozarabic
From orbilat.com, it seems the language we know as Spanish didnt emerge until the 9th centry, and was really the dialect spoken in and around the town of Burgos. It was also around the 9th century that Latin-Portuguese documents began to appear. BUT, it was around the 11th century that real Portuguese-Galician texts began to appear. So, it seems both Spanish and Portuguese “split” around the 9th century. My guess is the dialect that became Portuguese-Galican didnt fully emerge til around the 11th century.
Portuguese is fairly easy to get the gist of if you understand the phonological history of Portuguese, and can read Spanish. They arent TOO far apart really.
Well I wondered because I do speak Portuguese, and I am now learning Spanish.
I notice that I understand Spanish pretty well even with no formal lessons, but a Spanish speaker finds Portuguese to be harder to learn - since Portuguese has muted vowel sounds, nasal vowels, but Spanish has only 5 or so vowels(not counting dipthongs).
Also I remember reading, maybe here, that Spanish X used to have the same sound the Portuguese has now - a sh sound. (so Xerez was once “Sherez”, whence “Sherry”).
Also I remember seeing Ladino once and I noticed it used the “f” where Spanish now has a silent “h”, yet Portuguese keeps that F. All that makes me think Portuguese is the more conservative (and older?) language.
So I was trying to figure out if one came from the other, and how they evolved. I have heard all sorts of ideas, that Portuguese was influenced by French because it was once ruled by Frenchmen from the House of Burgundy and so on.
I don’t know if Basque ever had an influence on Portuguese, since they live over in Spain - but maybe that might be one of the things that separates Spanish and Portuguese.
Neither came from the other. It is true that Spanish x used to be pronounced like Portuguese x, but that’s only because Portuguese is more conservative in some aspects of phonology than Spanish is. For instance, your example of f where Spanish uses h (actually silent). In Old Spanish, this used to be pronounced as f, but moved to aspiration, than became silent.
In Portuguese however, nasal consonants caused nasal vowels to appear: Sanctus > Santo > San > São, where Spanish is more conservative, and the nasal consonants remained. Neither is older than the other, they are both more conservative than each other and vice versa.
I’ve never heard of Portuguese having nasal vowels due to French influence (which is a silly notion). As i said, the nasal vowels developed due to the influence of nasal consonants (n actually). A similar process happened in French.
And as to Moorish influence, yes, both were influenced by Arabic. In fact, when Southern Portuguese dialects mixed with the Mozarabic speaking areas, this caused Galician and Portuguese to split into two languages (Both are very closely related). For instance, usually, any word beginning with “al” is often derived from an Arabic word:
Spanish: algodón - cotton, aldea - village, alcalde - Mayor
Portuguese: alface - lettuce, algodão - cotton, arroz - rice
What Doobieous said. Also, what makes you think it is more difficult for a Spanish speaker to learn Portuguese than for a Portuguese to speak Spanish? It all depends on the person and how they study. I can understand reading Portuguese pretty well, and have not taken any formal lessons, and also get something out of what people are saying in Portuguese.
PD. Doobieous, arroz is also Spanish for rice.
Well, duh :). I was using that as an example that not every word derived from Arabic starts with “al” and also to round out the examples i had. Three for Spanish, three for Portuguese :).
As for the spoken language, Portuguese is palatised, and muted, while Spanish has that “forceful character” as the Encyclopedia Britannica said. Also Portuguese has several sounds that Spanish doesn’t have - whereas Spanish may have one or two. That makes spoken Spanish easier to learn than Portuguese.
But a Spanish speaker can probably pick up a Portuguese newspaper and understand every story with little difficulty.
I’m not implying that Spanish is “simpler”…just that by any account its clearer. Portuguese also has verb tenses that don’t exist in Spanish, and irregular plurals. I’m not saying Portuguese is extremely hard - but it takes more time.
Also I remember hearing that Brazilian Portuguese was closer to Spanish than European Portuguese is to Spanish.
That may make Brazilians easier for Spanish speakers to comprehend, and I was narrowmindedly referring to European Portuguese, which sounds very different.
This link has a list of Spanish words that come from Arabic, from the orbilat.com site Doobieous used.
I worked with two people that spoke Portuguese and they were from Brazil. They said they had no trouble at all understanding Spanish.
So I would guess Saudade is correct in that aspect.
But if this is true why? Why would there be more blending in South American than Iberia? Are there geographical barriers there not in South America that provented it?
Or was it the political climate? In other words the Portuguese in Europe not liking the Spanish there so much they made more of an effort to keep their language pure.
Ok Doobieous, just wanted to be sure.