4 ms·

After years in Portugal I still can't differentiate where anyone is from within the country, but put me a Brazilian event and I can tell you where each person i

After years in Portugal I still can't differentiate where anyone is from within the country, but put me a Brazilian event and I can tell you where each person is from in Brazil (where I also lived) by accent and word-choice alone. I'm impressed by my lack of ability when it comes to Portugal. Perhaps it's more nuanced. However, the language gradient you speak of is one of the reasons I love Iberia. If only modern English, as you note, would be so interesting. By the way, the region the author speaks of is beautiful, in case anyone plans to take a lazy drive through it. If yes, don't forget Andorra.

jacobush 9y ago
But go to Scotland and modern English gets quite more interesting.
- Jaruzel 9y ago
  Go further North (the Orkney Islands) and it gets more interesting yet, as the Norse influence creates a whole new dialect.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    The North East of Scotland has a particularly "interesting" dialect - things like "Fit like ma loon?" I'd love to know where the terms "loons" and "quines" for boys and girls came from. It's a sair fecht.
    - wolfhumble 9y ago
      Loons I am not so sure about (http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/loun http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/loun has some interesting info on the name though, see e.g. item 5) but quines sound somewhat similar to the word for woman in today's Scandinavian languages: Danish: kvinde, Norwegian: kvinne and Swedish: kvinna. You can also find it again in the word Queen (originally woman) that seems to share similar words and meanings in different European languages: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/queen http://www.dictionary.com/browse/queen Fascinating stuff! :-)
      - arethuza 9y ago
        My family is from a North East fishing village and apparently I've got one Finnish ancestor about ~300 years ago - I've wondered if that's where I got my distinct epicanthic folds from!
        wolfhumble 9y ago
        It's all in the family! :-)
      - jacobush 9y ago
        Before the Swedish zpelling reform a century ago, "kvinna" used to be typed "qvinna". So even there, not far removed from "queen".
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - jhbadger 9y ago
      "Quine" is a great name for a girl because after all, she can produce a daughter. Although sans parthenogenesis, the daughter's not an exact copy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)
      - ranit 9y ago
        Not quite similar: > ... program which takes no input ... The only recorded human quine produced a son.
  - grey-area 9y ago
    Braw

jacobush 9y ago

But go to Scotland and modern English gets quite more interesting.

Jaruzel 9y ago
Go further North (the Orkney Islands) and it gets more interesting yet, as the Norse influence creates a whole new dialect.
- arethuza 9y ago
  The North East of Scotland has a particularly "interesting" dialect - things like "Fit like ma loon?" I'd love to know where the terms "loons" and "quines" for boys and girls came from. It's a sair fecht.
  - wolfhumble 9y ago
    Loons I am not so sure about (http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/loun http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/loun has some interesting info on the name though, see e.g. item 5) but quines sound somewhat similar to the word for woman in today's Scandinavian languages: Danish: kvinde, Norwegian: kvinne and Swedish: kvinna. You can also find it again in the word Queen (originally woman) that seems to share similar words and meanings in different European languages: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/queen http://www.dictionary.com/browse/queen Fascinating stuff! :-)
    - arethuza 9y ago
      My family is from a North East fishing village and apparently I've got one Finnish ancestor about ~300 years ago - I've wondered if that's where I got my distinct epicanthic folds from!
      - wolfhumble 9y ago
        It's all in the family! :-)
    - jacobush 9y ago
      Before the Swedish zpelling reform a century ago, "kvinna" used to be typed "qvinna". So even there, not far removed from "queen".
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jhbadger 9y ago
    "Quine" is a great name for a girl because after all, she can produce a daughter. Although sans parthenogenesis, the daughter's not an exact copy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)
    - ranit 9y ago
      Not quite similar: > ... program which takes no input ... The only recorded human quine produced a son.
- grey-area 9y ago
  Braw