Boring discussion about language to follow, but...
well, here it is.
There are some words in Catalan that have silent letters that explain about the pronunciation of the letters that follow. Two that come to mind are setmana and atmella, week and almond respectively. The 't' in each case means that the sound of the following 'm' is lengthened like a double letter.
Where it gets interesting is that the older people here, who never learned to read or write Catalan, or only learned as adults, pronounce it correctly - though many cannot spell it. The younger generation, who are learning the language with written as well as oral information are actually pronouncing it incorrectly and are saying the 't' and not lengthening the following 'm'.
I find it fascinating that in spite of a surrounding culture of pronunciation, they are following the written - and incorrectly understood - orthographic rules rather than the community at large, and there are many cases of this.
Are the younger speakers trying to 'correct' the language? I think not, because they all make some GLARING grammatical errors that are so predominant they are likely to become the norm in a generations time.....are they trying to sound more educated? Why is it that they are ignoring the common rules? Is it that many of them don't speak Catalan at home and so they pronounce it more phonetically and there is such a large number of native Spanish speakers making the same error that it is entering the lingua franca on the playground and therefore into the community at large it a way...
I will have to ask a Catalan scholar. I know a few.
It happens less in English I think for two reasons, first of all, it has been a predominantly literate community for a very long time, so the oddities of the written language have less impact. Also English is so very full of these weirdnesses, such as the unspoken 'k' at the front of know and knife, that it has little impact....that said I bet we all know people who pronounce the 'w' in sword.
I keep finding myself pondering the implications of all this...
Fascinating.
10 comments:
My mom is a linguist. You sound like her. :)
Perhaps you are observing (happen to be in the midst of) the evolution of a language as a younger generation makes its presence known, felt and heard. Do you know of others who note the phenomenon or is it just you – as a relative newcomer to the language – who observes this?
Not to nitpick, but that would be "ametlla".
But this is an interesting observation. Personally, I've always heard the 't' pronounced, but then, the gemination could be something that happens in your area (I'm most familiar with the accent of Osona, which a lot of people say is the closest to "Standard" Catalan you can get in natural speech). Maybe this was a dialect feature, and young people are adopting something more standard that they learn in schools.
Very interesting question. I'd like to hear more if you find out more.
And since living here (and who knows, maybe even before, I can't remember, but defintely now) I always pronounce the "l" in "almond." Not only does it make more sense, it sounds better-- though I'm not making the conscious choice to say it that way.
Sadly I am not a linguist, just a wanna be...
Beth, I am far far far from the only one to notice...
egaliede, I thought that looked wrong when I typed it...too lazy and too tired to look it up. I don't think it is only a local dialectical thing as my Catalan philolog teacher was the one to tell me that the function of the 't' kept it silent, but that it is now being mis-pronounced by the younger and more literate generation. Hard to say, though from what I have been told it isn't the standard but rather a mispronunciation. I imagine an arguement could (and has been) made for either side. Still interesting that there is the generational shift whatever the true use of the 't' in these words. I only hear younger people saying things like setmana, also it is mostly older people who carry the 'b' so that amb acent comes out sounding like am bacent...I think I am spelling acent wrong, but it is again (pathetically) too late to go and look it up.
Thanks for dropping by!
Kate, my husband and his family all 'mispronounce' almond (with l) and sandwich (comes out like sangwich). I always assumed it had to do with learning English as a second language as they are, while not off the map errors, they are non-typical pronunciation 'errors'. Whole thing is utterly fascinating.
How's the teaching going?
In my family we mispronounced some words as a kind of inside family joke.
"Piss-ghetti" instead of "puh-sketti" instead of "spaghetti."
"Cat-a-strophe" instead of "ca-tas-tro-phe" (especially when the cat really was to blame).
Most famously, thanks to my learning language by ear rather than by eye: "So-poppers" instead of "soap operas." Who knew???
Language is fun, isn't it?
sp-poppers....I love that!!! Language is so much fun....
Your response prompted me to look up etymologies, and I thought you might be interested :)
I found that "setmana" comes from the vulgar latin "septimana", which does indeed have a 't'... The Italian work for week is "settimana", and the Romanian is "saptamana", however the French, Spanish and Portuguese words don't have a 't'. So really, it could be either way :P
And "ametlla" is a little less ambiguous: it's from "amigdula" or "amindula" - no 't' - and no other Romance language (that I checked) pronounces a 't'.
I am happy to drop by, as I find your blog interesting - it's nice to read about someone else's experiences in Catalonia.
egaliede! WOW!! That is cool....where did you look it up? I am shopping for a good Catalan dictionary...the same Catalan teacher also told me that Catalan is the romance language closest to Latin...which I find fascinating too..
How long have you been here in Catalonia?
I actually found that all online... I was surprised as first, but there are a lot of Catalan resources on the internet.
This is the Diccionari Etimologic, and there's a nifty encyclopedia thrown in too: http://www.enciclopedia.cat/fitxa_v2.jsp?NDCHEC=0022453
And this one is multilingual, though a bit limited - there are a lot of words I try to look up that it doesn't have: http://www.grec.cat/cgibin/mlt00.pgm?USUARI=GENCAT1&SESSIO=0004976268
I definitely agree with your Catalan teacher on that point - sometimes I'm doing something with Latin and am completely shocked to realize that there's the same word in Catalan, that means the same thing, with just a few letters removed or rearranged :P
I don't actually live in Catalonia, but I spent all of last summer there and my boyfriend is Catalan... so I have a bit of a personal interest in the place.
Post a Comment