Posts tagged: Languages
Curaçao by Dean Wittle
Romancing the Languages | Papiamentu
The song is a heartfelt ballad by Boy Thode it starts with “Ayo amor” and then you can heard “vai cu Dios amor, vai cu Dios”: Is it a creole spoken in lusophone Africa? An Spanish diaspora? Gibraltar? Nope! It’s Papiamento a language spoken in the Netherlands More specifically the ABC islands (Aruba, Curaçao and San Marteen part of the Dutch Caribbean).
There are various theories about the origin of Papiamento, some says it comes for Portuguese creoles spoken by the slaves brought by the Dutch, others claim it originates in the islands with help of the Portuguese Jewish community and the influence of Spanish.
Either way the language is a nice mix on English, Dutch, African languages and a big part of Romance languages too. A majority of the vocabulary comes from Portuguese and the construction derives in part from Romance constructions for example : Cuanto aña bo tin? means How old are you? and it reminds you to Cuantos anos(pt)/años(ñ) (tú) tens/tienes?
Papiamento us an official language in Aruba and Curaçao along with Dutch it’s also spoken in Bonaire and by communities in St. Marteen, Saba and St. Eustabius and of course the Netherlands. It’s a beautiful language and it’s been described as “rarely vibrant”. And the also use the ñ.
Here is a blog in papiamento I like a lot: Dijed Bisa, this blogger recommended a great grammar of papiamento (in papiamento here is one in Spanish). Here are some poems with English translation and here is a great explanation about Netherlands and all the Dutch bits around the world.
Hope it helped, see you soon!
Sometimes I English very well but sometimes no
Reasons why Chinese is hard.
what in the flying fuck? o.O
This is actually my favorite example of gratuitous and egregious wordplay in any language ever.
Every other riddle can go home
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English:
Pumpkin
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Spanish:
Calabaza /Zambo
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Italian:
Zucca
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French:
Citrouille
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Portuguese:
Abóbora
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German:
Kurbis
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I think I have made my point
We swedes should be proud! Americans, not so much.
It’s really awful when you realize that the two languages you speak are actually products of colonization
Only languages are living, moving entities, they evolve and change an adapt, they born and die and colonize too but they mix much more easily than philosophies or people. They win some things with every contact and lose others. The languages were elements of colonization but if they stayed is because they won another function than be understandable for the colonial, power. They stayed because they unified, because they grew with a new generation, because they were used to exalt and to demand freedom.
Languages can be horrible things, they can serve racism and domination but they can blend, they can respect each other. Wasn’t papiamento born languages of colonial power and slaves and immigrants. Is not a good think that people talk creole in Cabo Verde and Afrikaans in South Africa? Isn’t it great that Chicanos have an unique brand o Spanish and that Kichwa is extremely different between regions? And isn’t it great that Latin American countries can understand each other and Spain because of their centuries of common history?
We should try to promote respect between languages stop linguistic discrimination. My country is full of courageous people who struggle to save they Native languages. But it’s also home to a rich variety of Spanish with different accents and words that can’t b found anywhere else. None of this languages is better, one was dominant and that is not ok, bu it’s not a bad language is not a language that lacks of a soul, of an identity. Languages are history and heritage. They can be changed and vanished if people want, But once the language is learn, once the new speaker takes possession of the language to express his universe, it’s his to use and transform.
Languages are your home and your history and you can hate them but personally I think you shouldn’t, I think we must fight for linguistic harmony no revenge
Romancing the languages | The language of…
Everybody knows English is The Language of Shakespeare but what about Romance Languages? Here are some:
- Català, The Language of Llull: Ramon Lull was the first author who wrote theological texts and novels in Catalan. He also spoke Arabic and Latin, after a festive youth he converted and went to Africa to evangelize. His most famous works are Blanquerna and Llibre de meravelles
- Español, The Language of Cervantes: When Miguel de Cervantes wrote Don Quixote Spanish already existed but man he took it to its glory. When he is not writing Cervantes is not writing he als goes to battles where he loses a hand (he is know as “The amputee of Lepanto”) or is being captured by corsairs for years. He is also called “The Prince of Wits”.
- Français, The Language of Molière: Jean Baptiste Poquelin called Molière was an actor and playwright he mastered French, played with French and is revered and loved all over France probably because his comedies are great. He died on stage and left behind an incredible number of works like Tartuffe, L’avare, Dom Juan…
- Italiano, The Language of Dante: Dante Alighieri wrote Divine Comedy an doing so he not only created one of the greatest epic poems ever, he also created the vision you probably have of the Christian afterlife. He is called “The Supreme Poet” and often share with Petrarch and Boccaccio the honor of being the father of the Italian Language.
- Română, The Language of Eminescu: I was surprised and still not sure it’s true because Mihai Eminescu is so recent! He was a Romantic poet that not only use his language prettily, he also brought new words from ancient texts and regional dialect and was the most important poet of the Romanian language. Luceafărul ”The Evening Star” a huge love poem is considered his masterpiece.
- Português, The Language of Camoes: Luis Vaz de Camoes also wrote and epic poemOs Lusíadas“The Lusiads” to the glory of Portugal. He was born in an era where the tin Iberic country was in full Epic Navigator mode and he was himself in many parts of the Empire exiled from Goa (India) to Macao (China) and Mozambique and back to Portugal where he is revered to day.
Hope it helped ;)
I had a funny moment when I was trying to translate sin into French because I originally wrote péchér which is to fish not péché which means sin.
Could you imagine? “to fish, and we must consequently die.” I think Faust would be a very different play.
To be honest, Faustus is a bit of a cock. Especially when he’s making fun of Mephistopheles’ pain.
It would, wouldn’t it I’m not nuts about grammar but in French shit can get real really fast if you made one of those mistakes (I have a huge par/pour problem). There is pêcher, péche and also pêche (peach) XD.
Also I haven’t thought on Faust in along time, thanks to bring it back to my dash.
French is sometimes a really hard thing to understand and nobody can expect you to know every little detail (except the French, all of them all the time zut alors!).
A quite common mistakes is the é/er Part participles for verbs ending in -er and infinitives in -er sound exactly the same. The easiest solution is translating the sentence but it can be more difficult because you have to follow the sentence structure so there is another trick…
