on 26/07/2003 23:48, Mike at watershed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>
>>
>> ....Cubanos talk so fast that many Mexicans joke about them,....
>>
> Yes, and South Americans joke that Mexicans with their up and down lilt,
> "sing". And then the Argentinians.... well, that's another story :>)
> I'm sure that Fernando can help us here.
>
> Mike
Hi Mike,
Yes I've followed this thread with some interest and was a little surprised
about the surprise many listees feel on their own idiomatic issues.
Specially regarding English language which is most flexible.
Think this happens everywhere though. My wife is able to tell the difference
between French from Paris and subtle differences in French spoken dans le
Province. And she's not French.
In the Spanish speaking world, differences are most striking.
For example, I have a hard time if I want to follow the dialogues in any
Almodóvar film, where Spanish is very 'madrileño' (from Madrid).
For political issues, here at Mvd we listen to Cubanos frequently and
personally I don't feel they talk too fast, neither do I feel Mexicans talk
slowly though they do have peculiar terms and meanings. But they both sing
to my ears, and so do Argentinians. One must make a difference between
Argentinians from BsAs and those from the different Provincias. For example
if any of you happenned to have heard ex-president Carlos Menem, he didn't
talk like a common 'porteño' (Buenos Aires native specimen, word derived
from Buenos Aires being a portuarian city) Porteños express themselves with
a very rich language with what I would call a strong italian *sound* or
*melody* but at the same time they are used to a more rude and shouty
manner, full of genital, anal or other sexual references. Not everyone
speaks this way there, but we are exposed to a lot of argentinian T.V.
As a splitted part of the Virreynato del Río de la Plata, therefore a
splitted part of Argentina, here we don't respect the Spanish sintaxis a we
should, but have a more Spanish *melody*. If you travel North, towards
Livramento/Rivera, and even in Tacuarembó (500 Km from Mvd), it has a strong
Portuguese *melody* and we call it Portuñol. But if you travel to the East,
to P del Este and Rocha, very near the Brazilian border, the *melody* is
purely Spanish !! And this is a really small country. Historical reasons
account for these differences, we had Portuguese colonies here as early as
ca.1760.
While talking to you offlist on this issue quite a while before this thread
began, you asked me if we used the word 'ciao' as Argentinians do. I
answered no, but later I thought that we actually did. In fact it derives
from Italian both phonetically and semantically, but in the Río de la Plata
language we write it 'chau' (meaning goodbye) and it doesn't sound as sweet
as in italian.
Language is not a fixed communication tool, it varies within a few miles
around, within next educational levels, within one single following
generation, within a single individual at different stages of development;
it is a living function. And then theories begin...
Rgds,
Fernando.
PS Hope I made myself clear :)
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