[Catalan] Parlem catalá

[bobjenkins]

Originally Posted by irmamar

With a great effort, maybe we´ll get it.

Espero que sea así
,y gracias

[ROBINDESBOIS]

Thank you for the explanation, that´s what I thougt.

[hermit]

Irmamar - Hablando de "Nada" en catalán, la leímos en Espanol, pero
había lecturas para desarrollar la curiosidad escolástica sobre el contenido
que tenía que ver con el catalán (uno de nuestros profesores era de
Barcelona; pues era de los mejores de académicos y humanistas.)

[irmamar]

Debían ser muy interesantes tus estudios. Me alegro de que tuvieras un buen profesor.

[Sancho Panther]

How do you pronounce 'SS' in Catalán? I have a recording of Segovia playing Boccherini's Cello Concerto and the announcer says it was transcribed by Gaspar Cassadó (Catalán cellist) but he pronounces the ss as a very strong English Z. I'm sure this is wrong, but can anyone tell me - I think it should be an 's', am I right?

[irmamar]

Are you sure that his last name wasn't Casado, with a single 's'? Single 's' is pronounced like your English z in "zero" or s in "nose", it's voiced. Double 'ss' is pronounced like your English s in "miss", voiceless. For instance:

Rossa (fair -woman-): voiceless /s/, like English "loose".
Rosa (rose -flower.): voiced /s/, like English "lose".

[Sancho Panther]

No, I did a bit of research - Gaspar Cassadó was a noted Barcelona musician (unintentional pun!) and intellectual in the thirties. Surprisingly for a catalán he was an ardent Franquista - Fanco's brutal repression of catalán culture was bloodthirsty and merciless and they are only now starting to recover from it.

Nevertheless Franco gave Cassadó a good job as head of ths Burgos Ministry of Culture (or something like that).

So if I read your posting right Cassadó = 's', and Casadó would be more like Cazadó, right?

[ROBINDESBOIS]

Irma que vol dire "ara per ara" i "d´ença que"

[irmamar]

Originally Posted by Sancho Panther

No, I did a bit of research - Gaspar Cassadó was a noted Barcelona musician (unintentional pun!) and intellectual in the thirties. Surprisingly for a catalán he was an ardent Franquista - Fanco's brutal repression of catalán culture was bloodthirsty and merciless and they are only now starting to recover from it.

Nevertheless Franco gave Cassadó a good job as head of ths Burgos Ministry of Culture (or something like that).

So if I read your posting right Cassadó = 's', and Casadó would be more like Cazadó, right?

Spain has been always (well, up till now) a really Catholic country and, as Republican army destroyed many churches and killed many clergymen, there were a lot of people who agreed with Franco, above all the postwar years, since people were hungry and he could give them food. That happened everywhere, even here, in Catalonia. Spanish Civil War was bloody and when one is hungry, ideals don't exist (o se dejan para más tarde ).

There are very few words with "z" between two vowels (as far as I know, all of them come from Greek words). So, surely Cassadó would come from Caçadó. Both "s" and "z" have the same sound voiced between vowels, while both "ss" and "ç" are voiceless.

Originally Posted by ROBINDESBOIS

Irma que vol dire "ara per ara" i "d´ença que"

Ara per ara = hoy por hoy.
D'ençà que = desde entonces.