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E-ISSN 2621-3796 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT Vol. 2 No. 1 (2019)

UNDERSTANDING NEW LANGUAGE: MUTUAL INTELLIGIBILITY IN ROMANCE LANGUAGE PAIR

Diana Oktavia STKIP Muhammadiyah Muara Bungo e-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

This paper concerns to the strategy applied by speakers of mutual intelligibilitity pairs in Europe, especially in Romance language pair, Portuegese and Spanish. Initial studies found a receptive multilingulism as a great strategy to break the gap of communication within these two languages. It is found that the speakers of both Portuegese and Spanish are able to communicate and understand each other even though they do not speak each other language. It happens because those two languages resemble each other and they have a large number of words which makes them recognizable. However, it is also found that Portuegese speakers can understand Spanish easier than Spaniards understand Portuegese, because Portuegese is more complicated than spanish.

Keywords: Mutual Intelligibility, receptive , Romance language, Assyimetric Mutual Intelligibility.

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INTRODUCTION each interactant continues to As it is known, there are speak his/her own language. many variations of languages The receptive over the world. People from multilingualISM strategy mostly different countries speak different used by speakers from three native languages, even within the mainland Scandinavian same country, different regions or languages, Danish, Swedish, and cities have different native Norwegian (Bo, 1978; Delsing & languages. Based on Lundin Akesson 2005; Maurud, Ethnologues (2019) there are 1976), because those languages 7.111 languages are spoken in can be mutually understood. the world. From those thousands They resemble each other and languages, some of them are they have a large number of spoken in European countries. In cognate words, which are not so Europe, there are 42 different different across languages, so languages spoken and 24 of that they become recognizable. them are official languages of the Therefore, Danish, Swedish, and European Union (Lewis, Simons, Norwegian can talk to each other & Fenning, 2015). in their own languages and they This language diversity understand each other without sometimes causes problems for knowing or speaking anyone’s Europeans to talk to each other language. across national borders; it also Not only for the speakers in leads to misunderstandings and these three mainland misinterpreting for people who do Scandinavian languages, the not speak the other languages. receptive multilingualism strategy This case attracts many also used in some other researchers to conduct the European countries, such as in studies to find the right solution. , language pairs In 2007, The European Check and Slovak which are Commision identified Receptive categorized as mutual Multilingualism as one intelligibility as the Scandinavian communication strategy that languages. Moreover, a couple of would be worth beside of language Portuguesee and studying the language. This Spanish is a mutually intelligible receptive multilingualism strategy pair. The can be used by people from speakers of those languages are closely related languages. They able to understand each other are able to communicate each while speaking their own other using their own languages languages. without having to speak each However, as some initial other language, for example an studies have shown, in some Indonesian speaks Bahasa languages, mutual intelligibility to a Malayan speaker between closely related and vice versa, they can languages is asymmetric. It can understand each other when be seen in the language pairs of

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Spanish and Portuguese as was bit different in Romance Romance language pair and group, where the scores on the between Czech and Slovak in the word test were lower than cloze Slavik language branch. The test scores for some groups, best-documented case of especially in spoken words. It asymmetric is a pair of was identified that they have Scandinavian language, Danish larger number of in and Swedish (e,g. Gooskens, Romance word lists (85% Van Heuven, van Bezooijen, & cognates) than in Germanic Pacily, 2010). These two (77%) and Slavic (64%) word languages are understandable by lists. each other speakers, but Danish speakers understand Swedish better than vice versa.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION Figure 1. Romance language tree It is assumed that the mutual intelligibility occurred based on the Geographical distance. In each group, Scandinavian, Germanic, and (Gooskens, et al:2017) Romance group, the countries where located closed to each Figure 1. Romance other will have higher possibility language tree shows that for the speakers to understand Portuguese and Spanish share a each other languages. common language background. Gooskens & Van Heuven They are a pair of Western (2017) in their recent study Romance language called Ibero. measuring cross-linguistic These two languages are intelligibility in the Germanic, understandable for the speaker Romance, and Slavic language each other language. In other groups by using word test, cloze words, they are mutual test, and picture matching tasks, intelligibility pair language. they found that the functional However, even though each tests displayed similar patterns of member of this Romance intelligibility, where especially the language pair is understandable cloze test and word translation by speakers of the other were strongly correlated. The language, the mutual intelligibility judged intelligibility scores and between these two languages is the results of the six functional asymmetric. Portuguese tests are presented the speakers can understand intelligibility score per language Spanish more easily than family, 20 % (Germanic and Spanish speakers understand Romance families) or 30% Portuguese. There are a lot of (Slavic) different language statements phrased by both combinations. However, there linguists and non linguists about

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this asymmetric mutual he found that overall the intelligibility; for example, in one difference score between two Associated Press news article groups was not overwhelming. (Timberlake, 1989[2a]) was Brazilian group got the score 58% stated that Spanish and then followed by the Latin- Portuguese are closely related, American group which got 50%. but they have different Brazilian performed better than pronunciation. Portuegese has Spanish in most of the tasks. more complicated pronounciation From the four texts, Brazilian system than Spanish. The group got higher score in the Portuguese speakers can three texts, Urbanization text generally understand spoken which is originally written in Spanish, but most of the Spanish Spanish and translated into speakers cannot understand Portuguese, Christmas letter Portuguese. originally written in Portuguese It is assessed that and translated into Spanish, and Portuguese is more complicated also in the TV newscasts reading than the Spanish. Even, it was task, While in another task, explained in one of the popular Spanish group got higher score in tourist guidebooks (Qebsen & reading on Ecuador originally Biel: 1986) that most of Spanish with Portuguese Portuguese have a tremendously translation. good and natural ability in Moreover, even though comprehending the spoken Spanish and Portuguese are two Spanish, they know Spanish closely related languages, they without exposing the language. are quite different in Meanwhile, the Spanish are able pronunciation. Mateus and to ask questions in Portuguese, d’Andrade (2000) stated that but they are unable to understand Portuguese has similar phonetic the response. to French or Catalan. The Furthermore, one of pronunciation of Spanish is linguists, Jensen (1989) in his recognized more closely related experiment found mutual to Italian pronunciation intelligibility of Spanish and (Eddington, 2004). Besides that, Portuguese in his study involving Mateus and d’Andrade (2000) Brazilian-Portuguese group and explain that Portuguese has Spanish (Latin-American) group. rather complicated vowel system In this study, the results also with nasalized vowels and a high showed that the Brazilian- prevalence of assimilations. In Portuguese speakers could contrast, there are only five understand and comprehend vowels in the Spanish vowel Spanish rather well; in contrast, it system (e.g. Cressey 1987). The was more difficult for (Latin- same case with Scandinavian American) Spanish speakers to language pair, Danish and comprehend Portuguese. Based Swedish which is found have on the tasks that he conducted, difference pronunciation, because

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they have different consonant understood for the speaker other and vowel in words cognate languages, only 12,5% task were (Gooskens & Bezooijen, 2013). answered correctly. Besides that, in spontaneous The Portuguese speakers speech, Portuguese speakers perform better than other reduce more syllables and utter speakers in understanding other fewer but more complex syllables languages, the mean score of this than Spanish speakers do. These group was 47,2%. Moreover, they vowel and syllable systems lead explained that both Italian and Spanish speaker face difficulty in Portuguese listeners understand listening and comprehending the the Spanish better than Spanish Portuguese speakers in running listeners understand Italian and speech, they cause some Portuguese. They showed the differences in the pronunciation. asymmetry mutual intelligibility in Furthermore, Spanish and Romance languages that Portuguese also have difference Portuguese is more difficult by in timedness in speech. There speakers other languages from are two categories of timedness Romance group. The in language, stress-timed of characteristic of the Portuguese syllable-timed (Pike, 1945). language system that it reduces Generally, Spanish is categorized syllables and has a richer vowel as a syllable-timed language, inventory, which makes it more where the time used in difficult to be understood for pronouncing each syllable is listeners of other Romance approximately same (Pike 1945). languages, including Spanish. For Portuguese it has been Beside of the claimed that it rather more factors, there are some non- stressed-timed (Frota & Vigario, linguistics factors affect this 2001). This language uses asymmetric mutual intelligibility approximately the same amount between closely related time between stressed syllables languages. Attitude toward the in speech (Pike:1945). language is one of important More recently, Gooskens, et factors effects the asymmetric al (2017) used a cloze test to mutual intelligibility (e.g. investigate the mutual Borestam 1987, Maurud 1976, intelligibility between closely Wolff 1959). If the attitude of related languages in Europe, and language A speakers is more found a number of cases of positive toward the language B asymmetric intelligibility in the than the way round, it is assumed Romance language group. Based that speakers of language A will on the data from 5 Romance understand language B better languages, the Spanish is the than B speakers in understanding easiest language to others, the language A. This positive attitude result showed that 57.2 % of encourages people to try and answers were correct. Romanian understand the language. Some is the most difficult to be cases of this attitude are shown

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in the pair of Danish and and non-linguistic factors. One of Swedish, Portuguese and these linguistics factors that Spanish. According to Gooskens Portuguese is more complicated & Bezooijen (2013), the attitude than Spanish. It has a quite of Danish speakers toward complicated vowel system and a Swedish is more positive than high prevalence of assimilations vice versa. Jensen (1989) in his which lead the Portuguese and result also found that the Spanish have different Portuguese speakers have more pronunciation and also different positive attitude toward Spanish timedness in speech. The attitude than Spanish speakers to toward language becomes the Portuguese. Besides that, he also most important non linguistics found that the experience with factor causes the asymmetric. other language held a responsibility of this asymmetric, REFERENCES for example use in the family, study, travel, etc. Bo, I. (1978). Ungdom og naboland [Youth and CONCLUSION neighboring country]. Mutual intelligibility is a Stavanger: great strategy to break down the Rogalandsforskning. gap of communication between Cressey, W.W. (1978). Spanish closely related languages. phonology and morphology: Speakers from closely related A generative view. language tend to communicate by Georgetown, DC: using their own native languages, Georgetown University but they can understand each Press. others’ language. They have the ability to understand each other Delsing, L.-O., & Lundin Åkesson, language without having to learn K. (2005). Håller språket the other languages. ihop Norden? En forsknings However, some related rapport om ungdomars languages have asymmetric förståelse av danska, mutual intelligibility. As a svenska och norska [Does Romance language pair, the language keep the Portuguese and Spanish are together? A understandable for each others’ research report on how well speakers, but the Spanish young people understand speakers find it more difficult to Danish, Swedish and understand Portuguese than vice Norwegian]. : versa, Portuegues speakers are Nordiska ministerrådet. able to understand Spanish Eddington. D. (2004). Spanish easier. phonology and morphology. There are some factors Experimental and leads to this phenomenon. These quantitative perspectives. factors come from both linguistic Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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