major linguistical differences between the dialects of spain?

Question

focusing primarily on galician, catalan, and andalusian, what are some key differences? mostly in pronunciation, alphabet, etc. not necessarily vocabulary (nothing from wikipedia please, ive already looked)

ok, ive done a bit of research so i already know that portugal and france influence the dialects, im looking for someone who knows quite a bit about them... i need details

Answer 1

The peculiar linguistic features of Andalusian developed from vulgar Latin in parallel to Castillian Spanish as the vernacular language of the population during the period of Arab and Berber domination Al-Andalus, and it is therefore as distinct not just in form but in origin from standard Spanish as Galician is from Portuguese. They say that only accidents of history (the fact that Andalusia was mostly annexed to the Kingdom of Castille immediately after the expulsion of the Arabs) have caused Spanish and Andalusian to be considered the same language.

The context for the movement to classify Andalusian as a language is the development of regional cultural revivals paralleling the regained autonomy of several Spanish regions. Over the years since the return of democracy to Spain, several previously suppressed languages have been allowed to flourish in Spain, such as Asturian and Catalan. Andalusian nationalists hope to achieve the same.

The most visible characteristic of the Andalusian language revival movement is the use of a strictly phonetic script that is visually very distinct from standard Spanish.

One method in actual commercial use for transcribing popular songs, flamenco lyrics, or whatever other texts which aim to reflect the actual speech features of the Andalusian region is called the Norma Ortográfica Andaluza (or NOA) which is based on the standard Andalusian of folklore in use throughout the Andalusian region and wherever it has been carried by flamenco performers.

This system is different from the standard Castillian spelling mostly in the representation of the 10 Andalusian vowels: five which it shares with Castillian (a, e, i, o, u), and five which are termed open or aspirated which are proper to the Andalusian accent, and are represented with a grave accent (`): (à, è, ì, ò, ù) and are mostly used in situations where an "s" has been aspirated before another consonant, (and the omission of certain other consonants as well). This aspiration often results in a duplication or a lengthening of the following consonant.

For example:

Lò jóvenè ècelentè han venío de la universidá.
Los jóvenes excelentes han venido de la universidad.
When such an aspirated vowel also happens to carry the accent in a word and would usually be marked with an acute accent, the two accents, (grave and acute) merge into a circumflex accent over the vowel (â, ê, î, ô, û).


Galician (or Galego, the name of the Galician language in Galician), our language, still maintains some traces of the former habitants of Galicia: those of pre-indeuropean origin and the Celts.

Therefore we can find in contemporanean Galician words like "amorodo", "lastra" "veiga", etc. and Celtic words such as "berce", "bugallo", "cróio"... which arrived to our language directly or through Latin. The Celtic heritance in Galician language can be also and specially found in the present toponimy: Barra, Brión, Carnota...

The Romans arrived to Galicia (I BC) very much later than they did to the rest of the Iberian Peninsula (III BC). Thus romanization begun late. This process leads to the assimilation of the Celts to the language of conquerors. Latin becomes the language of Galician people, although this was a quite slow process, achieved by marriages and several administratives advantages such as gaining roman citizenship, lands distribution, etc.

This process of romanization also successed in other places. This explains why Romance languages evolved from the language spoken at that time, vulgar latin.

After the 5th century peoples of germanic race and language arrived to Galicia. They could not assimilate the language of the Galician-Romans. The same happens whith arabs and the new arrivals of Celts from Britany (in 7th century). These contacts gave Galician language a number of loanwords of both Germanic ("laberca", "espeto", "roupa", etc) and arab origin, although the last ones were less and arrived more indirectly (Mamede, "laranxa", "aceite", "azucre"...)


Ever since the restoration of democratic institutions, there has been a process to re-establish the use of Catalan. It is now a co-official language, along with Spanish, in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, and is widely used an everyday language throughout Catalonia, Valencia, Andorrra and the Balearic Islands. Catalan is used as a medium of instruction in many schools, it is also used extensively in the media and in government.

Catalan alphabet A a B b C c Ç ç D d E e F f G g H h
a be ce ce
trencada de e efa ge hac
I i J j K k L l M m N n O o P p Q q
i jota ke ela ema ena o pe cu
R r S s T t U u V v W w X x Y y Z z
erre esse te u ve
baixa ve
doble ics,
xeix i grega zeta

Pronunciation


Sample text
Tots els éssers humans neixen lliures i iguals en dignitat i en drets. Són dotats de raó i de consciència, i han de comportar-se fraternalment els uns amb els altres.

Listen to a recording of this text by Margarita Gracia Sanz from Valencia

Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Answer 2

Galician is mostly a dialect of Portuguese, separated for inexplicable political reasons.

Andalusian is a Castillian dialect, important because it influenced the accents of most of Latin America.

Catalan, though also romance, is a completely different language, probably more closely related to French than to Castillian. Most speakers of Catalan live within the Spanish State, but that too is an accident of history.

Answer 3

Galician and Catalan are not dialects, but languages. And in Andalusia they speak Castillian (the main official Spanish language), just with an Andalusian accent and some particularities.

Here's some info about Spanish languages and dialects that could be useful for you, in English:
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=ES
http://www.alsintl.com/languages/spanish.htm
http://www.justlanded.com/english/spain/tools/just_landed_guide/language/languages

Answer 4

The two paths offer completely different approaches. Christianity is concerned with belief, a creed that one signs up to; believes we have to behave in certain ways here in order to get into heaven; and believes that people who don't behave well enough go to hell. Judaism is concerned with covenant, with what we do on a daily basis in recognition of that covenant, and is not very bothered about exactly what one believes; is very concerned with THIS life and living it to the full, enjoying the pleasures of the world while behaving responsibly towards one fellow humans; believes we should engage in efforts to make this life a better place for everyone; and has no notion of hell. Christianity holds that those who don't believe in Jesus are not 'saved' from 'original sin' and therefore are damned. Judaism has no concept of original sin and holds that anyone who leads a righteous life, Jewish or not, is just as beloved of God. As a minor detail, Christianity believes that sex is somehow rather sinful and shouldn't be enjoyed too much, particularly by women; Judaism believes that sex is provided by God for enjoyment and a man's duty towards his wife is to ensure her pleasure and satisfaction. They really are utterly different concepts, and one of the biggest problems Jews have is that people assume that Judaism is sort of like Christianity in the way in which it is a religion. It isn't.

Answer 5

The dialects that are spoken in the east are very related to French (some words actually exist in French). The ones spoken in the west sound a lot like Portuguese.