The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

[iguanamon]

Graças à recomendação de Luso, já assisti muitos dos vídeos de Gato Fedorento que bem ilustram a vida portuguesa contemporânea através do humor de sketches. Pra mim o grupo é bem parecido à serie Britânica Monty Python mas com um sotaque português- muito engraçado! O primeiro que assisti era Segue, segue. segue. O vídeo mostra uma garota parando para perguntar um homem onde fica o Centro Cultural e então, começa o ridículo:



Luso assegura-me que é muito perto à realidade de dirigir em Portugal. Quando eu estava lá, usei o transporte público e por isso não posso confirmá-la em primeira mão. Mas posso dizer que os portugueses são muito amigáveis e prestativos quando um gringo encontre-se perdido, porque me encontrei muitas vezes tentando de achar um lugar e pedindo ajuda.

De fato, na verdade, os portugueses são tão prestativos que até ajudam este passageiro num avião com a bomba que portava consigo abordo. (com legendas em inglês)



Novamente- ridículo!

E aqui estão eles parodiando uma novela brasileira



E parodiam Felipão



O nome do grupo vem da canção cantada por Lisa Kudrow em "Friends", Smelly Cat.

@Luso, não sabia muito do Alberto Benveniste mas, agora, já li a biografia dele em francês. Também tem um centro com o nome dele em Paris. Como já dissestes, é um homem bem interessante. Acho que tenho que visitar a Cátedra de Estudos Sefarditas a próxima vez que estiver em Lisboa, né?

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Hi iguana

have you watched the series or a programme called " death in paradise" ? when I've seen it, I have thought that it's maybe similar to where you live?

[iguanamon]

No, I haven't, at least not yet. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

It's about murder investigations with a funny police force It seems bad that it's about murders, but it isn't frightening at all, but it's a comedy. The island is in the Caribbean, and is beautiful. I know that you live in the Caribbean therefore when I watch the programme I think that iguanamon lives there haha.

[Luso]

There's one interesting aspect regarding Gato Fedorento, which will be lost on foreigners:

These four guys hail from a language and linguistics course. Given the deterioration of public use of the Portuguese language (due to several influences beyond the scope of this post), they set out to make fun of the most common mistakes, by stressing some of them.

I believe there's even an entire sketch making fun of the use of prepositions at the end of sentences (which is strictly forbidden).

There are other sketches where several registers are used to great effect, like the affected tones of government officials (reminding us of ancient times).

And there's at least one sketch where French and English make an appearance.

[galaxyrocker]

There's one interesting aspect regarding Gato Fedorento, which will be lost on foreigners:

These four guys hail from a language and linguistics course. Given the deterioration of public use of the Portuguese language (due to several influences beyond the scope of this post), they set out to make fun of the most common mistakes, by stressing some of them.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it really sounds like they're encouraging linguistic prejudice. Something I really can't see any linguist (in the scientific aspect of the word) doing, since, to them, they're all about describing how native speakers use it, not how it's supposed to be used.


Also, I dislike your use of the term 'deterioration of public use'. if native speakers use it, it's correct, regardless of what the grammar books say.

I believe there's even an entire sketch making fun of the use of prepositions at the end of sentences (which is strictly forbidden).

As stated above, if native speakers of the language use prepositions at the end of sentences, it's fine. Same as with English.

[Luso]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong (...)

Maybe you are. Or maybe I was not clear.

I agree that when there's a general consensus among speakers to say (and write) something in a new way, this may eventually become part of the language.

However, there are some errors that cannot enter the language easily (I don't see "their", "there" and "they're" being accepted as synonyms in English in the near future).

What these comedians did was to pinpoint some uses of the language (seen as errors by the majority of the population, I can assure you) and highlight them in a funny way.

Oh, and they are not being elitist. In fact, more often than not, they target "celebrities".

[galaxyrocker]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong (...)

Maybe you are. Or maybe I was not clear.

I agree that when there's a general consensus among speakers to say (and write) something in a new way, this may eventually become part of the language.

But there doesn't have to be a general consensus. Language change happens naturally; there's no group of people getting together saying "Well, we'll start saying y'all as a second person pronoun from this day forward". It just developed then spread. See below for my opinion on writing.

However, there are some errors that cannot enter the language easily (I don't see "their", "there" and "they're" being accepted as synonyms in English in the near future).

The issue I have with this, however, is that those aren't language errors; they're writing errors. Writing != language, but is only a way to represent it. In speech, the true form of language, "their", "there", and "they're" all sound exactly the same. Which tends to them being written the same; it happens with other homophones, such as "you're" and "your" or "to" and "too". Furthermore, these "mistakes" are often correlated with education, and thus generally social class. So it all goes back to prejudice.

What these comedians did was to pinpoint some uses of the language (seen as errors by the majority of the population, I can assure you) and highlight them in a funny way.

And this is why I feel we need to teach basic linguistics in schools. To show that everyone speaks differently and that's fine. But there are certain times for certain registers.

Oh, and they are not being elitist. In fact, more often than not, they target "celebrities".

It's good to know that, but I'm still against the prejudice that comes about because someone speaks differently than you. Perhaps that's because I natively speak a non-prestige dialect, and have often been judged for it.

[emk]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it really sounds like they're encouraging linguistic prejudice. Something I really can't see any linguist (in the scientific aspect of the word) doing, since, to them, they're all about describing how native speakers use it, not how it's supposed to be used.

Although I am personally a staunch linguistic descriptivist, maybe iguanamon's personal language log is not the best place to have this discussion? You could always try the "General Language Discussion" forum.

[daegga]

If you haven't already seen it, you might be interested in this:
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... -language/