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#Post#: 13112--------------------------------------------------
Re: Guess the language
By: Aliph Date: March 6, 2019, 12:54 am
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The story of the Arbėreshė people is absolutely fascinating.
They came to Italy when the ottomans invaded their country and
forced the Albanians to convert to Islam. So the Arbėreshė
migrated to southern Italy to save their faith. They are
Christians, I think catholic by now, with byzantine rites and
the Mass was still celebrated in Greek until some years ago.
The community amounts to 100000 persons, originally scattered
in some rural villages. They always were fierce liberals and
contributed to the unification of Italy in the XIX th century.
I only heard their language in films. It seems that it is
mutually intelligible with modern day Albanian though they share
only about 50 % vocabulary. An interesting feature, if I
understood it right, is that they do not have abstract words
and express abstract concepts with periphrastic combinations of
words taken from Italian.
HTML https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbėreshė_people
#Post#: 13113--------------------------------------------------
Re: Guess the language
By: Aliph Date: March 6, 2019, 1:03 am
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Arbėreshė Italo-Albanians
HTML https://youtu.be/-kV7KDpDKE0
#Post#: 13115--------------------------------------------------
Re: Guess the language
By: Alharacas Date: March 6, 2019, 4:19 am
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Thanks for the links, Sofia! You're right, it is a fascinating
part of history. I'd assumed emigration would have started at a
much later date.
Nikola, this is just to tell you that I tried and failed to find
a youtube video of somebody speaking the Albanian I'd heard
those people in the restaurant speak - sorry. One guy spoke with
the kind of intonation which had reminded me of a Slavic
language and also a couple of the nasal sounds which make me
think of French:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ptre1OzsJ4
Maybe you'd need to listen with the volume turned down so far
you can't hear individual words to see what I mean? :)
Another guy had a decidedly Italian intonation, maybe even an
Italian accent (?), yet another speaks so haltingly, there is no
discernible intonation at all. None of them made those throaty
sounds (qaf) I know exist in Arabic.
#Post#: 13116--------------------------------------------------
Re: Guess the language
By: Nikola Date: March 6, 2019, 5:08 am
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There are several Albanian tutors on italki. I just listened to
some of them. I can hear a lot of sch, sz and cz sounds that
sometimes appear at the end of a word so that could give it a
"Slavic vibe", I suppose. It's actually really hard to imagine
what Slavic languages sound like to someone who isn't a native
speaker of one of them :)
#Post#: 13117--------------------------------------------------
Re: Guess the language
By: Allie Date: March 6, 2019, 6:02 am
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[quote author=Nikola link=topic=889.msg13116#msg13116
date=1551870514]
There are several Albanian tutors on italki. I just listened to
some of them. I can hear a lot of sch, sz and cz sounds that
sometimes appear at the end of a word so that could give it a
"Slavic vibe", I suppose. It's actually really hard to imagine
what Slavic languages sound like to someone who isn't a native
speaker of one of them :)
[/quote]
Honestly?
They remind me of a lot of European Portuguese.
When I listen to European Portuguese, to me it sounds like
Polish (and believe it or not, I've heard other people saying
the same).
In Latin America, Portuguese (this time Brazilian) is often
compared to Russian.
Judging by the speed Russian people learn Portuguese and how
good they sound, there must be something to it.
(I am sorry if my comment for some reason may give a false
impression that I am reducing Slavic Languages to Russian and
Polish. It's just that those are the ones I am most used to and
know more people from those countries)
#Post#: 13120--------------------------------------------------
Re: Guess the language
By: Truman Overby Date: March 6, 2019, 7:27 am
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[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=889.msg13109#msg13109
date=1551834172]
Remember, my Polish isn't that good...
[/quote]
Are you saying that you need to polish your Polish?
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