Spanish language on Caminos outside of Spain

[William Garza]

Just idle tboughts
Wondering if in France and other surrounding countries that if there is an english barrier-s but not Spanish?
Guessing the closer you get the better the outlook on that?

 

[emmanuel]

Just idle tboughts
Wondering if in France and other surrounding countries that if there is an english barrier-s but not Spanish?
Guessing the closer you get the better the outlook on that?

My experience last year on the Le Puy Camino in May is that most walkers are not pilgrims, they are French pensioners. There are, of course, some pilgrims from Germany, Australia, NZ, USA, etc. Language-wise, thus, French is the most common language, followed by English. Never heard Spanish.

 

[William Garza]

Was figuring that language bleed over in surrounding countries like here in the states would be effects
Lol, in parts of Texas,Louisiana there is a mixture of creole,spanish,english and still some french speaking in the back woods

 

[witsendwv]

Was figuring that language bleed over in surrounding countries like here in the states would be effects
Lol, in parts of Texas,Louisiana there is a mixture of creole,spanish,english and still some french speaking in the back woods

I am not quite sure what your question is, but having traveled to the Houston/Galveston area in the past year several times I can say I have used my Spanish skills (limited as they may be) several times. In Spain, regardless of which region- Castilian works just fine. If you are going to be in a particular area- Galicia, Pais Vaso, Cataluna etc. a few words in the regional language is always appreciated.

 

[OzAnnie]

Just idle tboughts
Wondering if in France and other surrounding countries that if there is an english barrier-s but not Spanish?
Guessing the closer you get the better the outlook on that?

Hi William
I took the meaning of your post to assume that with both French and Spanish ; being romantic languages … there might be more chance of being understood in the parts of France that were nearer spain, if one who could not speak French .& tried to communicate in Spanish. I would have thought (strictly my idle thought tho ) that there would be more chance of a Frenchman understanding Spanish than English ??

 

[William Garza]

Hi William
I took the meaning of your post to assume that with both French and Spanish ; being romantic languages … there might be more chance of being understood in the parts of France that were nearer spain, if one who could not speak French .& tried to communicate in Spanish. I would have thought (strictly my idle thought tho ) that there would be more chance of a Frenchman understanding Spanish than English ??

Yup,along those lines
Borders are liquid and languages,customs etc bleed over.
Figured all the northern to south eastern routes would have a smallest of common threads of people having traveled through spain along the camino routes.

What am i thinking
Wishful not having traveled in europe thinking i guess

 

[dick bird]

Surrounding countries would be France and Portugal. Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish quite well, French speakers not so well.

 

[William Garza]

Woops, i ment to include all the caminos, not just spains..sorry

 

[JabbaPapa]

Borders are liquid and languages, customs etc bleed over.

French and Spanish are actually quite distant from each other, and typically Spanish monolinguals don't understand French and vice-versa.

It's complicated by the presence of Basque in the French and Spanish Basque countries in that border region.

French and Occitanian have a bit more mutual intelligibility, as do Occitanian and Spanish ; similar with Catalan and French, Catalan and Spanish, Italian and Spanish.

The Portuguese understand Spanish quite well, but Spaniards have a bit more trouble with Portuguese.

There is some bleed over in the Italian/French border regions, as there are local dialects of Italian or French that borrow from the other language, but the same is not true in the French/Spanish border regions where instead of dialects, there are regional languages.

 

[Flog]

Mountain ranges form pretty good natural and sometimes cultural and language barriers between countries. I think this is largely true of the Pyrenees.. distinctly French on one side, distinctly Spanish on the other.

I think it's fair to say that,very generally apeaking, the French and Spanish don't be speaking each others languages.

 

[Pelegrin]

There is some bleed over in the Italian/French border regions, as there are local dialects of Italian or French that borrow from the other language.

In my opinion, in the case of Aosta ( Italy) they don' t speak an Italian dialect that borrows words from French, they speak a French dialect.

 

[JabbaPapa]

In my opinion, in the case of Aosta ( Italy) they don' t speak an Italian dialect that borrows words from French, they speak a French dialect.

Yes, and over the border there are some Italian dialects, not French ones -- though few French people now speak those Italian dialects.

 

[jefferyonthecamino]

Just idle tboughts
Wondering if in France and other surrounding countries that if there is an english barrier-s but not Spanish?
Guessing the closer you get the better the outlook on that?

not in france, maybe northern portugal

 

[M2ME]

The only “bleed” I have encountered is with Catalan in Perpinyá/Perpignan. That being said most would not view it as bleed given Perpinyá historically was part of the Principality of Catalonia. Quite a way from the frontier there is a considerable Spanish influence in Arles but it doesn’t extend to the language.

 

[Pelegrin]

. Quite a way from the frontier there is a considerable Spanish influence in Arles but it doesn’t extend to the language.

I wouldn' t say Spanish influence. I'd say Iberian influence. This is an Iberian area different to Galo areas in France.

 

[LTfit]

Definitely don't expect the French to speak Spanish (or English) and from my experience the Portuguese would rather speak English than listen to you speak to them in Spanish, no matter how good it is.

The only "bleeding" I would guess is Basque in the French and Spanish provinces.

 

[trecile]

Knowing Spanish did me absolutely no good in France. And French speakers that I meet on the Camino generally don't speak Spanish unless they've studied it.

 

[J.Patrick]

In Italy, on the Francigena, I used Spanish whenever I didn’t know the Italian, which was much of the time. I ended up speaking Spanglitalian - a little Spanish, a little English, the few words of Italian I picked up or previewed in Google translate. It often worked.

I find that if you unfailingly greet service people in a country the polite way they expect to be greeted (buon giorno or buona sera in Italy), then what follows tends to be pleasant, engaging and mutual, regardless of language skills.

 

[Kathor1]

I am not quite sure what your question is

I put "languages spoken in border regions" into Google, and the search results that came up had titles like "How sharp are language borders in your country and its surrounding regions" or "Language continuum on the Spain/French border". I think that is what is meant. Within Europe, both language borders and a language continuum or a dialect continuum are interesting topics. I am not sure that these can be compared to current linguistic situations in the United States in a meaningful way.

 

[Kathor1]

Here is a map that some may find interesting:

Europe - Carte linguistique / Linguistic map

All languages of Europe are represented on this map. We provide useful and geographical information for each language / Toutes les langues de l'Europe sont représentées sur cette carte ...

www.muturzikin.com

Note: The standard language is taught in the national school system. Neighbouring countries' standard languages are taught as a foreign language (if at all). When there is a common language on both sides of a national border it is usually a dialect form of a standard language. Note for example a small part of the Belgian-French border, a part of the French-German border or a small region in the Danish-German border region or the singularity of the Basque language on both sides of a small part of the French-Spanish border. The fat black lines are the national borders.

 

[Former member 22438]

Spanish do understand Portuguese
The grammar is almost the same.
Originaly long time ago it was one Iberian language .
I speak Castillano since 1978 due to my work in Spain , Catalunya and latin America
In 2013 I started learning Brazilian Portuguese and in 2016 European Portuguese. During my working time till 2009 I regulairy visited customers in Portugal and Brasil and spoke Castillano to them
No problems at all.
They say Spanish do not like Portuguese who speak Portuguese to them but never had any problems with that. Corresponding with e.g. the Pilgrims Office or hotels I recently booked, my messages where in Portuguese and alway got an answer back, either in Castellano or Galego.


As Dutch born and raised we have the same situation with Germans
Our languages relate to each other as Spanish and Portuguese .
I live in a Dutch village with beautiful beaches , visited by hundreds of thousands of Germans all year round and as long as they are good for the financial income , German is spoken in every shop, restaurant, bar, holidaypark .
The first commercial rule is” speak the language of your customer “. The second by the way is “ the customer has a bag full of money and we want to have that bag”

 

[emmanuel]

I am a native Spanish speaker and my experiece is that for some reason Portugese speakers can understand Spanish, but the reverse is not true. In fact, Portugese speakers talk back to us in Portoñol, a mixture understandable to Spanish speakers.

 

[M2ME]

I wouldn' t say Spanish influence. I'd say Iberian influence. This is an Iberian area different to Galo areas in France.

Potato, patata

 

[dick bird]

Just idle tboughts
Wondering if in France and other surrounding countries that if there is an english barrier-s but not Spanish?
Guessing the closer you get the better the outlook on that?

Not sure, by the way, what you mean by ‘english barrier-s’. Portuguese people, especially younger ones, often have very good English, and French too since many of them worked or grew up in France. Spanish is not much taught in French schools, but English is and French people, although they are shy about it, will use the English they know if you are nice about it.

 

[Friend from Barquinha]

Not sure, by the way, what you mean by ‘english barrier-s’. Portuguese people, especially younger ones, often have very good English, and French too since many of them worked or grew up in France. Spanish is not much taught in French schools, but English is and French people, although they are shy about it, will use the English they know if you are nice about it.

This is all quite true. The rule seems to be...most Portuguese under 30 or so can speak at least some English, having studied it as their primary "second language" in grade school. Many are quite bashful about using it, but will, in a pinch.

Then there's a group of maybe 30-55-years old where they may have some English, and quite possibly some French from having worked out of country in either France or Switzerland for some years.

Then, with the over-55-year-olds (which would be pre-revolution), if they are from the middle class, they will likely have had French as the foreign language taught in schools, as the Portuguese very much admired French culture. If they were agricultural workers or other working class, they likely never learned another language.

Hardly anyone outside the tourist industry will speak much Spanish. In non-commercial situations, in my experience, Spanish is avoided.

And by the way, "good day" is "bom dia" in Portuguese (used till "almoco" (lunch--al-mow-so) ) and "boa tarde" in the afternoon, till "jantar" (dinner--zhan-tar).

And "bom caminho" (bom ca-meen-you).

 

[JabbaPapa]

The only "bleeding" I would guess is Basque in the French and Spanish provinces.

Basque is completely unrelated to Spanish and French. It is an entirely separate language having no mutual intelligibility with either of those languages.

 

[LTfit]

Basque is completely unrelated to Spanish and French. It is an entirely separate language having no mutual intelligibility with either of those languages.

I'm aware of that, I actually almost wrote my undergraduate thesis about the Basques. I was specifically referring to the concept of bleeding of languages from one region or country to another.

 

[JabbaPapa]

I'm aware of that, I actually almost wrote my undergraduate thesis about the Basques. I was specifically referring to the concept of bleeding of languages from one region or country to another.

I don't think it applies in that case ; nor in the case of Catalan as far as French is concerned -- as the same language is spoken on both sides of the border rather than languages bleeding into each other.

Catalan does "bleed" into Valencian, Andorran, the Balearic dialects, and to a degree into Occitan ; and Spanish to a greater or lesser degree "bleeds" into all of those ; just not into French, though French does "bleed" a little into Catalan.

Oh and loan-words as such don't really count in this respect, they're just part of the dictionaries, and not fundamental to the languages and dialects in themselves.

 

[Kathor1]

the concept of bleeding of languages from one region or country to another

I am still puzzled by what is meant by the concept of "bleeding" of languages. Is it a situation where a non-local language has "seeped" from a neighbouring region? I can only imagine that this happens when non-local language speakers move into a new area - immigrants from either another country and culture or mobile locals who move say from England to Wales (probably not a great example and used simply to illustrate the idea; a better example would be people moving from Brussels into the surrounding region but it is an example that is not familiar to most posters I'd guess - and a thorny issue anyway).

I can't speak for situations in the USA. In Europe - on those regions where there is crossborder use of languages - language use did not "seep" or "bleed" across a national or regional border. The languages and dialects were established long before the national or regional-administrative borders were drawn. A popular well-known example is Alsace–Lorraine / Elsass–Lothringen with their changing political/national/regional borders.

However, if the question is this: Is it increasingly likely that Spanish is spoken in areas in France the closer these areas are to the French-Spanish border than my answer, based in my albeit limited experience in the field, is: No.

Needless to say, use of another language as a foreign language taught at school or acquired through autodidactic learning or in the context of working abroad is something entirely different again. I was surprised at first when I encountered a number of older (retired) locals along the Camino Francés who spoke French or Dutch due their long working abroad in Switzerland, France or the Netherlands. I was also surprised that the (younger) staff in the restaurant of the Hotel Roncesvalles did not know French and/or English - the most frequent languages spoken by non-domestic tourists including tourist-pilgrims in the area. It is the school curriculum and educational policies at primary and secondary school that steer such linguistic competence and not the geographical closeness to the regions on the other side of the national border.

Even more needless to say, the roots of a language and how languages and dialects are linguistically related to each other is yet another different topic.

I do recommend having a look at the map that is linked in an earlier post.

 

[Kathor1]

For starters, btw, they don't call it "Camino" in France (thread title!). That may tell you already something .

I am pretty sure of this but I will pay close attention again and prick my ears as soon as I get a chance to walk on a Chemin de Compostelle or a Chemin de Saint-Jacques again.

 

[Pafayac]

For starters, btw, they don't call it "Camino" in France. I am pretty sure but I will pay close attention again and prick my ears as soon as a get a chance to walk on a Chemin de Compostelle or a Chemin de Saint-Jacques again.

In France, most of us say "Bon Chemin".
There are a few non-french walkers on the (actually) french ways, but no Spaniards.

 

[Kathor1]

In France, most of us say "Bon Chemin".

Ooh, time for my anecdote . When I had walked with a companion through the porte de l'Espagne in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and we had just started to amble up the road to Orisson, we were overtaken by a freshly minted peregrino from Australia. He said "Buen Camino" to us, with enthusiasm. I turned to my companion in surprise and disbelief and asked: "Are we already in Spain ??? Isn't the border much later ???"

BTW, I wasn't referring so much to the greeting as to the fact that in French and in France, unlike in English, people do not refer to the "Camino" but to the "Chemin", at least in my experience. The expression "Way of Saint James" seems to have disappeared from current English among the pilgrims to Santiago.

 

[Pelegrin]

I can't speak for situations in the USA. In Europe - on those regions where there is crossborder use of languages - language use did not "seep" or "bleed" across a national or regional border. The languages and dialects were established long before the national or regional-administrative borders were drawn. A popular well-known example is Alsace–Lorraine / Elsass–Lothringen with their changing political/national/regional borders.

I agree. Giving another example, in Grandas de Salime ( Primitivo) the original language is Galego despite being In Asturias. People on this area think that they speak this way because they are close to Galicia but that's not true. They speak that way because the pre-Roman people were the Galaics, not the Astures who lived in Pola de Allande and beyond. Puerto del Palo is the linguistic border.

 

[Kathor1]

Here is an extract of a map that attempts to show what people speak on each side of their country's border. This does not primarily show the official language or official languages of each country. The legend says: "Priority is given to regional dialects and minority languages".

The thick black lines show the borders between Spain and France, France and Italy, France and Germany as well as all of Switzerland and a part of Austria. The colours (green, orange, red, blue) refer to language families such as Romance, Germanic, Basque and so on.

 

[JabbaPapa]

I am still puzzled by what is meant by the concept of "bleeding" of languages. Is it a situation where a non-local language has "seeped" from a neighbouring region? I can only imagine that this happens when non-local language speakers move into a new area - immigrants from either another country and culture or mobile locals who move say from England to Wales (probably not a great example and used simply to illustrate the idea; a better example would be people moving from Brussels into the surrounding region but it is an example that is not familiar to most posters I'd guess - and a thorny issue anyway).

No -- linguistically, even though the concept has been somewhat messily suggested by the OP, it basically refers to local dialectalism in trans-national border regions.

Typically, non-native immigrants will over a number of generations become mother tongue speakers of the language spoken natively in the region or country in question, with little influence over how that language is spoken.

I can't speak for situations in the USA. In Europe - on those regions where there is crossborder use of languages - language use did not "seep" or "bleed" across a national or regional border. The languages and dialects were established long before the national or regional-administrative borders were drawn.

That is a misconception, I'm afraid.

There is a fairly hard linguistic border between French and Spanish, but that's more exception than rule.

Both countries also have a Language Academy that promotes an official language that represses the various local dialects.

But the normal situation in a normal linguistic region is that of a patchwork of local and regional dialects and languages, including where each particular village will have its own dialect, which is the case in most of Italy, most of Portugal, and to a lesser extent regionally in Spain and France.

However, if the question is this: Is it increasingly likely that Spanish is spoken in areas in France the closer these areas are to the French-Spanish border than my answer, based in my albeit limited experience in the field, is: No.

There is very little "bleed" between French and Spanish.

 

[David Tallan]

Spanish do understand Portuguese

I had heard it was the opposite. Portuguese understand Spanish (whether or not they admit it), but Spanish have much more difficulty understanding Portuguese (although it isn't that difficult for them to learn).

 

[JabbaPapa]

For starters, btw, they don't call it "Camino" in France (thread title!)

Some French do.

More use Chemin than those who use Camino, and I use Chemin de Saint-Jacques myself, but both words are used by the French, variably between one individual and the next.

 

[JabbaPapa]

View attachment 172346

Looks very inaccurate, even just down here locally.

There's no "niçart" but it's Nissart. Almost nobody speaks Provençal itself in the eastern Alpes-Maritimes and there is a pretty hard dialectal border formed by the Comté de Nice and also by the local Alps from Èze and La Turbie outwards..

There are multiple local dialects here that are French, or Provençal, or Ligurian, or Munegu, or Genovese, and so on and so forth -- there used to be some Greek ones that have long died out -- the map also suggests that Occitanian and Provençal are somehow equivalent to each other, which is straightforwardly false. There is a pretty hard linguistic border between one side of the Rhône and the other in the French South.

 

[M2ME]

No -- linguistically, even though the concept has been somewhat messily suggested by the OP, it basically refers to local dialectalism in trans-national border regions.

Typically, non-native immigrants will over a number of generations become mother tongue speakers of the language spoken natively in the region or country in question, with little influence over how that language is spoken.

That is a misconception, I'm afraid.

There is a fairly hard linguistic border between French and Spanish, but that's more exception than rule.

Both countries also have a Language Academy that promotes an official language that represses the various local dialects.

But the normal situation in a normal linguistic region is that of a patchwork of local and regional dialects and languages, including where each particular village will have its own dialect, which is the case in most of Italy, most of Portugal, and to a lesser extent regionally in Spain and France.

There is very little "bleed" between French and Spanish.

The OP is from Texas where an interesting linguistic landscape exists particularly along the Mexican border. Aside from the obvious linguistic influence of migrants from Central and South America there is the fact that there are Spanish speaking communities that have existed since before Texas was a republic. As a friend once observed “my family didn’t cross the border it crossed us”.

 

[JabbaPapa]

The OP is from Texas where an interesting linguistic landscape exists particularly along the Mexican border. Aside from the obvious linguistic influence of migrants from Central and South America there is the fact that there are Spanish speaking communities that have existed since before Texas was a republic. As a friend once observed “my family didn’t cross the border it crossed us”.

That is an excellent clarification, thanks !!

 

[Kathor1]

There's no "niçart" but it's Nissart

Thank you for sharing this and other thoughts. You may want to check some background although I am not sure that further details are of interest to the OP. Just one example and it's even in Wikipedia so easy to find, and there are of course explanations on the linked website itself:

niçard (Classical orthography), nissart/niçart (Mistralian orthography), niçois (French), or nizzardo (Italian) is the dialect that was historically spoken in the city of Nice, in France, and in a few surrounding communes.​

Enjoy!

 

[JabbaPapa]

Thank you for sharing this and other thoughts. You may want to check some background although I am not sure that further details are of interest to the OP. Just one example and it's even in Wikipedia so easy to find, and there are of course explanations on the linked website itself:

niçard (Classical orthography), nissart/niçart (Mistralian orthography), niçois (French), or nizzardo (Italian) is the dialect that was historically spoken in the city of Nice, in France, and in a few surrounding communes.​

Wikipedia is insufficiently reliable.

I live about 20 km from Nice, and nobody uses anything other than Nissart, or sometimes in French Niçois. But usually even in French it's called Nissart. And it's not "was historically spoken", but this (Occitanian) dialect is still spoken today, even though the great majority of the 21st Century Niçois speak French instead.

The neighbouring (Occitanian) Mentounasc (spoken very rarely, but I have heard it on occasion) is more influenced by Ligurian and Italian than Nissart, whereas Monégasque/Munegu is a variant of Ligurian pretty much unrelated to Nissart, but which did "bleed" into Mentounasc as Menton used to be part of Monaco. The French Wikipedia "Occitan" entry absurdly claims Monégasque to be an Occitanian dialect !!

The further up into the mountains you go from here, the more Ligurian and Italian elements you will find in the dialects, just as on the other side of the border, elements of French creep into the dialects there.

The border region here and further north between France, Monaco, Italy, and Switzerland has a patchwork of dialects where Provençal (Eastern Occitan), French, Ligurian, and Italian "bleed" into each other in the way that OP suggested, whereas a similar situation is not to be found in the French/Spanish border areas, where the Basque and Catalan regions as well as the Pyrenees themselves form a hard barrier between French and Spanish ; though there is some "bleed" through between French and Catalan ; Spanish and Catalan.

 

[William Garza]

The OP is from Texas where an interesting linguistic landscape exists particularly along the Mexican border. Aside from the obvious linguistic influence of migrants from Central and South America there is the fact that there are Spanish speaking communities that have existed since before Texas was a republic. As a friend once observed “my family didn’t cross the border it crossed us”.

Its a bit more complicated in Texas as waves from the german,czech,polish
irish/gaelic,castillian spanish and tex mex....then french/creole of louisiana
As well as little enclaves of super minorities settled.
We tend to be unconciously multi lingual, full on mono linguistic persons will say Topperwein road..a road in San Antonio...

How would you pronounce it as a fun diversion?

Topper wine
Tepper wine ....

 

[Kathor1]

Topperwein road..a road in San Antonio

Is the road named after Adolph Toepperwein (October 16, 1869 – March 4, 1962) who toured with his wife as the Fabulous Topperweins as exhibition shooters and who died in San Antonio?

Well never mind how to pronounce this family name, there is the no doubt related question of how to write it: Topperwein, Toepperwein or Töpperwein? My bet is on the latter. Its origin is a mittelniederdeutsch word - you can literally see and hear that it comes from that linguistic region, what with the t and double pp in it. One who serves or taps wine.

 

[Kathor1]

The OP is from Texas where an interesting linguistic landscape exists particularly along the Mexican border. Aside from the obvious linguistic influence of migrants from Central and South America there is the fact that there are Spanish speaking communities that have existed since before Texas was a republic. As a friend once observed “my family didn’t cross the border it crossed us”.

This (see below) is how the area in Texas along the border with Mexico is represented on the website I linked to earlier. If anyone wants to criticise what they see I'd recommend to first read the explanations about the linguistic criteria used and the aim of this apparent labour of love. I just find it interesting and I guess it is obvious that I have no plans to engage in criticising and debating minute details. Do make a comparison with the linguistic map of the French-Spanish border to the extent that a comparison is meaningful given the differences in historical developments. And above all: enjoy!

The fat dark line is the border between the USA and Mexico. Parts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona are shown. Berri is Basque for New. Did I already mention that I recommend to read the explanations on the website?

 

[William Garza]

This (see below) is how the area in Texas along the border with Mexico is represented on the website I linked to earlier. If anyone wants to criticise what they see I'd recommend to first read the explanations about the linguistic criteria used and the aim of this apparent labour of love. I just find it interesting and I guess it is obvious that I have no plans to engage in criticising and debating minute details. Do make a comparison with the linguistic map of the French-Spanish border to the extent that a comparison is meaningful given the differences in historical developments. And above all: enjoy!

The fat dark line is the border between the USA and Mexico. Parts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona are shown. Berri is Basque for New. Did I already mention that I recommend to read the explanations on the website?

View attachment 172386

Very nice!

 

[Mendizale]

This (see below) is how the area in Texas along the border with Mexico is represented on the website I linked to earlier. If anyone wants to criticise what they see I'd recommend to first read the explanations about the linguistic criteria used and the aim of this apparent labour of love. I just find it interesting and I guess it is obvious that I have no plans to engage in criticising and debating minute details. Do make a comparison with the linguistic map of the French-Spanish border to the extent that a comparison is meaningful given the differences in historical developments. And above all: enjoy!

The fat dark line is the border between the USA and Mexico. Parts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona are shown. Berri is Basque for New. Did I already mention that I recommend to read the explanations on the website?

View attachment 172386

This is very interesting, thank you very much!

 

[Doingit]

Hi William
I took the meaning of your post to assume that with both French and Spanish ; being romantic languages … there might be more chance of being understood in the parts of France that were nearer spain, if one who could not speak French .& tried to communicate in Spanish. I would have thought (strictly my idle thought tho ) that there would be more chance of a Frenchman understanding Spanish than English ??

Well, France is France and except maybe very close to the spanish border you might have more Spanish speaking French people, just like on the German border they speak German. In the center of France where I am at the moment, it is French speaking with some people at times understanding English and sometimes Spanish too.

 

[Kathor1]

France is France and except maybe very close to the spanish border you might have more Spanish speaking French people, just like on the German border they speak German

There is a common perception that people on both sides of a national border are likely to speak each other's language. I don't think that this is accurate, at least not in Europe. I speak not only from what I know in general but also from personal experience. I've lived very close to linguistic borders in two different countries and two different constellations. What determines the level of knowledge of the other's language is not vicinity. It is historical developments, national language policy (such as suppression of a minority language for example, i.e. no school education in a minority language, no subsidies for newspapers, TV, radio in a minority language) and what is called a dialect continuum or a language continuum (where for example the dialects between two neighbouring villages are very similar but also very slightly different and this continues over a large area).

 

[William Garza]

There is a common perception that people on both sides of a national border are likely to speak each other's language. I don't think that this is accurate, at least not in Europe. I speak not only from what I know in general but also from personal experience. I've lived very close to linguistic borders in two different countries and two different constellations. What determines the level of knowledge of the other's language is not vicinity. It is historical developments, national language policy (such as suppression of a minority language for example, i.e. no school education in a minority language, no subsidies for newspapers, TV, radio in a minority language) and what is called a dialect continuum or a language continuum (where for example the dialects between two neighbouring villages are very similar but slightly different and this continues over a large area).

Exposure by travel for the oilfield brought other workers from neighboring states mentioned and as well as food,habits and colloquialisms gave a different norm.

My travels exposed me to various cultural and micro cultural enclaves. There is a very small community called Danevang, localised to Dan-e-vang.lol..who were entirely Danish in origen..

Many other small towns in the back woods where french is a second or third language.
Spanish,anglo,creol,french was a/the normal heard round the oilfields as the work followed drilling sites.

I met a linguist turned congress person who broke down my dialect to very near my home town. Her workers proudly smiled as they listened and watched my southern drawl dissected.
The world around here is connected language wise to a few languages french,spanish,Texmex,english with a smattering of German,Polish,Russian,Vietnamese
As well as hillbilly(yes,a dialect)
By Romance-latin extension...cuban

My thoughts were/are colored by experience travel and nearness of cultural enclaves and originally intrigued by the idea of European cultures being uncharitably put..more.cosmopolitan

Travel and nature,nurture colored the original post

 

[Mendizale]

Mutual comprension sp-fr is not so easy as phonetic barrier is big. But people in border areas do tend to speak the others language due to commercial interest. In most shops of San Jean de Luz, Hendaye Spanish is spoken. Not so realmin the spanish, where youth speak more English. In the basque region one could think that having a common native language in both sides of the border do things easier. Not so true, reality is complicated. France's hyper-centralist policy still does not officially recognise "regional languages", in our case, Euskera. This is terrible for the prestige of a language, it is associated with the way people talk in the village. In France, very few people speak it for this very reason, despite the success of the Ikastolak language immersion schools. This clashes with the reality of the Spanish part, where, despite the legal difficulties for total normalisation, a citizen of the Basque autonomous community or of the Basque-speaking areas of Navarre has the recognised right to communicate with the public administration (half of the time, this is true), to study at school, at university in Euskera or even to publish doctoral theses in Euskera. Specifically, in the province of Gipuzkoa, 50% of adults and 80% of teenagers speak Euskera (as their first or second language). Gipuzkoa has 725,000 inhabitants in total. It is difficult to find Basque speakers on the French Basque coast (many new residents each year from the Bordeaux and Paris areas). In the interior area, for example Ustaritz, Sara, Bigorri, SJPdP, it is easier to speak Basque. It could be a language of understanding on both sides of the border, but I fear that it is not in the political interest of both countries to promote it as a common language.

 

[Kathor1]

reality is complicated

@Mendizale, thank you for your contribution.

My comments tend to be long so I did not mention two aspects that you pointed out: commercial interest and commercial need of second, third or more languages knowledge, and also the "prestige" that a language has within a specific region or country in both the view of the speaker and the listener.

Second language acquisition through primary and secondary school and the legal situation of what we know as "official language(s)" is a complicated issue - even nowadays - in numerous regions in Europe (and by this I mean the EU countries and not all the others with similar issues).

Language use, language acquisition and language policy for recent immigrant populations - first, second and perhaps now even third generation - is a completely different topic again.

 

[William Garza]

Mutual comprension sp-fr is not so easy as phonetic barrier is big. But people in border areas do tend to speak the others language due to commercial interest. In most shops of San Jean de Luz, Hendaye Spanish is spoken. Not so realmin the spanish, where youth speak more English. In the basque region one could think that having a common native language in both sides of the border do things easier. Not so true, reality is complicated. France's hyper-centralist policy still does not officially recognise "regional languages", in our case, Euskera. This is terrible for the prestige of a language, it is associated with the way people talk in the village. In France, very few people speak it for this very reason, despite the success of the Ikastolak language immersion schools. This clashes with the reality of the Spanish part, where, despite the legal difficulties for total normalisation, a citizen of the Basque autonomous community or of the Basque-speaking areas of Navarre has the recognised right to communicate with the public administration (half of the time, this is true), to study at school, at university in Euskera or even to publish doctoral theses in Euskera. Specifically, in the province of Gipuzkoa, 50% of adults and 80% of teenagers speak Euskera (as their first or second language). It is difficult to find Basque speakers on the French Basque coast (many new residents each year from the Bordeaux and Paris areas). In the interior area, for example Ustaritz, Sara, Bigorri, SJPdP, it is easier to speak Basque. It could be a language of understanding on both sides of the border, but I fear that it is not in the political interest of both countries to promote it as a common language.

You guys have been a HUGE eye opener to culture for me at least!

 

[David Tallan]

There is a common perception that people on both sides of a national border are likely to speak each other's language. I don't think that this is accurate, at least not in Europe. I speak not only from what I know in general but also from personal experience. I've lived very close to linguistic borders in two different countries and two different constellations. What determines the level of knowledge of the other's language is not vicinity. It is historical developments, national language policy (such as suppression of a minority language for example, i.e. no school education in a minority language, no subsidies for newspapers, TV, radio in a minority language) and what is called a dialect continuum or a language continuum (where for example the dialects between two neighbouring villages are very similar but also very slightly different and this continues over a large area).

Way back in the early 80s, when I was studying linguistics as an undergrad, we were taught that people from neighboring villages in Europe generally spoke local dialects that were mutually intelligible. Even between France and Germany, where the national languages were from two different language families, this idea of a village to village linguistic continuum was presented to us as the case (surprising as it was to me). It may be that I was completely misunderstanding (or am misremembering) what my professors were saying, although it really stands out in my memory as something noteworthy and which would have been questioned. It may be that they got it wrong. It may be that things have changed a lot in the 40 years since I was in those classes and national language policies, pervasive media, or other forces have displaced those local dialects with something more like the standard national language.

But if that was what was being taught, even in linguistics courses, it could be the source of the perception.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

It may be that things have changed a lot in the 40 years since I was in those classes and national language policies, pervasive media, or other forces have displaced those local dialects with something more like the standard national language.

I'm no expert and, in fact, only did a little research after reading an interesting fact about Romansh in Switzerland. It is an official language of Switzerland though spoken only by a VERY small number of people. There are many dialects due to settlements in isolated valleys spread out linearly. It is difficult for those on the far east and west valleys to understand each other. The government created a standard Romansh dialect to use in radio and television broadcasts but this is not used by the population who instead will use Swiss German amongst themselves when needed.

Not really on topic but related to accents is an entertaining segment on a variety show I saw long ago (the Ed Sullivan Show in the 60s???). An expert in accents had a short discussion with an audience member and then said something like "You were raised at A until you were B years old when you moved to C for D years ..." and so on and he was correct. The giveaway was you learn certain words at certain ages and the local pronunciation sticks. I'm still amazed at how he could process all this while busy speaking.

 

[JabbaPapa]

There is a common perception that people on both sides of a national border are likely to speak each other's language. I don't think that this is accurate, at least not in Europe.

I'd say that would depend where in Europe, though as a generality I'd say that's right. The border area French where I live speak Italian far more often than the other French do, and the same is true of the Italians on the other side of the border - - having said that, locally it's due to many local tourism and work realities that give reason to both populations to learn each others' languages.

In other border areas without such opportunities, I've not seen such linguistic mixity, just as you suggest.

 

[JabbaPapa]

I'll add that in Europe anyway, the border area dialects have generally been dying out since the 19th Century, and from both efforts by Governments and the effect of mass media (invention of the industrial printing press in the 19th Century and so on from there), so that within national borders, people have increasingly been speaking only their national languages.

That may not necessarily be the case outside of Europe, even though these influences are not exclusive to Europe.

 

[Pelegrin]

There is a village in Zamora province divided between Portugal and Spain called Rionor/ Rihonor de Castilla. If you visit the village you'll realize that Castillian is spoken at the Spanish side of the border and Portuguese at the other side. When the border was set in twelfth century all inhabitants spoke Asturleones.

 

[JabbaPapa]

There is a village in Zamora province divided between Portugal and Spain called Rionor/ Rihonor de Castilla. If you visit the village you'll realize that Castillian is spoken at the Spanish side of the border and Portuguese at the other side. When the border was set in twelfth century all inhabitants spoke Asturleones.

Great stuff, though as a counterpoint, at the Perthus, if you're on one side of the main road you're in France, and on the other in Spain. The Spanish side is livelier as the shops are less expensive, but the locals there most definitely do their to-and-fro, and speak both languages as a matter of course. Also, though I wasn't able to verify this when I passed through, it's not unlikely that amongst themselves, they speak Catalan.

 

[Pelegrin]

Great stuff, though as a counterpoint, at the Perthus, if you're on one side of the main road you're in France, and on the other in Spain. The Spanish side is livelier as the shops are less expensive, but the locals there most definitely do their to-and-fro, and speak both languages as a matter of course. Also, though I wasn't able to verify this when I passed through, it's not unlikely that amongst themselves, they speak Catalan.

I think that in Rionor everybody must speak Castilian and Portuguese but nobody Asturleones. There is still some Asturleones in Portugal in the municipality of Miranda de Douro that is official in Portugal. Asturleones is not official in Asturias and Leon.

 

[Mendizale]

One of the most interesting cases of the Basque-French-Spanish border is that of Valcarlos (Luzaide for Basque speakers), a small town that many of you in this forum will know, with Arneguy (Arnegi). Both are physically far from the surrounding towns and stuck together. Both share streets and are separated by a river. Valcarlos is located in the Basque speaking area of Navarre, but they speak the Basque dialect of the French region of SJPdP, the same as Arnegi. The inhabitants on both sides of the border are closely mixed. In both towns the percentage of Basque speakers is 70%, and practically all speak the 3 languages. Since 2018, in order to take advantage of public resources, the children of both towns share a single public school and study in a trilingual model, Basque, French and Spanish. These are two towns where the inhabitants speak three languages and switch from one to the other depending on the circumstances and the interlocutors, although the local language spoken is mainly the Navarrese-Lapurdian dialect. The Basque they study at school is the standard one, in this case Navarrese-Lapurdian is very close to standard (as is the central or Guipuzcoan dialect and the Alto Navarrese).

 

[Pelegrin]

One of the most interesting cases of the Basque-French-Spanish border is that of Valcarlos (Luzaide for Basque speakers), a small town that many of you in this forum will know, with Arneguy (Arnegi). Both are physically far from the surrounding towns and stuck together. Both share streets and are separated by a river. Valcarlos is located in the Basque speaking area of Navarre, but they speak the Basque dialect of the French region of SJPdP, the same as Arnegi. The inhabitants on both sides of the border are closely mixed. In both towns the percentage of Basque speakers is 70%, and practically all speak the 3 languages. Since 2018, in order to take advantage of public resources, the children of both towns share a single public school and study in a trilingual model, Basque, French and Spanish. These are two towns where the inhabitants speak three languages and switch from one to the other depending on the circumstances and the interlocutors, although the local language spoken is mainly the Navarrese-Lapurdian dialect. The Basque they study at school is the standard one, in this case Navarrese-Lapurdian is very close to standard (as is the central or Guipuzcoan dialect and the Alto Navarrese).

But I think that in Burguete, Euskera is lost as first language. When I did SJPP - Logroño I only heard Spanish there.

 

[Mendizale]

But I think that in Burguete, Euskera is lost as first language. When I did SJPP - Logroño I only heard Spanish there.

Auritz/Burguete is in the basque speaking area and fortunately it is not lost, 30% of it's habitants speak it. In those percentages speakers speak it when met eachother, not in the everyday day community live. they But I don't know much about the village except I was there a pair of times in summer camps in childhood.
What I looked up is that there is a research of basque speakers of Burguete made by department of Dialectology of the university the Basque Country

San Juan sua eta lelo gaiztotua Auritzen - Ahotsak.eus

Euskal Herriko Ahotsak: Proiektu honen helburu nagusia da, Euskal Herriko ahozko ondarea eta herri hizkerak bildu eta hedatzea; hau da, gure herrietako adineko jendea elkarrizketatu, eta euren euskara eta bizipenak jasotzea eta herritarren artean zabaltzea.

ahotsak.eus

 

[OTH86]

Late to the party, but... Interesting topic!!
On my first Camino, I was riding with an older taxi driver between Astorga and Rabanal, and we had communication problems - he didn’t know English, and Spanish was still a bit new to me. Since I speak French, I asked, in French, if he spoke that language - and he DID!! He told me I would be able to communicate with older Spanish folks more easily in French since that was the ‘foreign’ language they learned in school at that time.

Oddly, since French comes more easily to me than Spanish does, my brain, when it notices Spanish, will help me out - occasionally - by translating the Spanish to French - sorta - and vise-versa. It’s a little weird, but it DOES help!

 

[dougfitz]

Surrounding countries would be France and Portugal. Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish quite well, French speakers not so well.

True, but when walking in Portugal, I did notice a certain intolerance of people who were tempted to speak Spanish. English, on the other hand, was generally well tolerated.

 

[Pelegrin]

True, but when walking in Portugal, I did notice a certain intolerance of people who were tempted to speak Spanish. English, on the other hand, was generally well tolerated.

Yes, in your case they prefer English but in my case I speak Galician ( with Portuguese accent) and they respond in many cases in Spanish to my frustation.