Pretentious people really ruined it for those who are just interested in linguistics or just lived in catalonia or etc. Like apart from saying barcelona as barthelona, catalonia as cataluñaand any french word correctly, nobody gets mad about pronouncing words correctly. Like if i (try) to say a polish word correctly most likely a polish person is gonna be happy and nobody else will notice. If anything its not even pretentious people ruining it, its the people who get upset by that. This a comment about society.
post
I've always heard that the largely Catalan folks in Barcelona really don't appreciate people pronouncing their name with a distinct Castillian accent.
It's honorable to try if your in that country. If your back home you're just making it harder for others to understand you, which is the purpose of language. It's less bad with things like parii and barthelona as people can guess those, it becomes more annoying with things like Deutschland and Nihon where most people won't understand where you went.
For anyone who hasn’t learned the history, that speaking impediment is literally how the pronunciation came about, the king who had a speech impediment was so adored (as the story goes) that the people took on that pronunciation and it stuck. It’s not pretentious, it’s kindness and love.
https://www.britannica.com/story/is-castilian-spanish-spoken-with-a-lisp
The myth of the Spanish king’s lisp has been attributed to at least two monarchs: Ferdinand III, king of Castile from 1217 to 1252 and of Leon from 1230 to 1252, and Peter the Cruel, king of Castile and Leon from 1350 to 1369. In court historian Pedro López de Ayala’s Crónicas, the latter is said to have “spoken with a slight lisp,” an observation often taken out of context to support the theory of a Castilian speech impediment. But Ayala never claimed that others in court mimicked Peter’s way of speaking, nor was the lisp at all the subject of his writing.
Ayala is one of Peter the Cruel’s only contemporaries to mention the king’s lisp; no historical evidence exists that suggests that it—or Ferdinand III’s alleged lisp, of which no record survives—influenced other Spanish speakers. Claims that Castilian Spanish is spoken with a lisp are based on rumor, not fact.
Edit: > For anyone who hasn’t learned the history, that speaking impediment is literally how the pronunciation came about
Oy vey.
I'm sorry, I'm not going to go back and forth with this person. I know I'm coming off like a "well, actually" dick here but that's not a pedantic minor difference. It was objectively false.
that is a myth. that change happened across three centuries during what is called “the adjustment of sibilants” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives )
I think it's crazy that one king had a lisp, and a whole population copied him.
Addressed in another comment: https://sh.itjust.works/comment/28536370
Okay, mi Castellano is a general disaster, but I'm pretty sure that the Barcellona region does indeed do what we call a 'signature lisp' in English.
Tell you hwat, though-- my stepmom visited that region one time, and even tho she spoke excellent Castellano, they got all bitchy because it wasn't 'Spanish-enough.' So she duly worked on learning the local inflections and whatnot, just as a visitor, mind you! And they had the nerve to call her "slow."
Bunch of wankers she ran in to, if you ask me.
EDIT: And of COURSE, someone's already angry upon what I just said, lol.
Why are they all so angry at you?
Maybe she should have learned Catalan instead of Castellano when visiting a Catalan region?
Oh sure! Spend years learning a major side-branch of the language, all so she could talk without language bias to the locals for two weeks...?
Idiot.
It's not a dialect or side-branch. It's an entirely different language, closer to Italian or French than Spanish.
I'm a non-native speaker who lives in Barcelona - and even though my Castelliano is far from perfect, I've never got anything but niceness and appreciation.
So your story seems either totally made up, or missing some important details.
Please don't make me laugh.
If Barcelona is so VERY HARD to live in for non-natives, then that would be one thing, right?
Women getting treated poorly in Europe and other parts of the world is unfortunately, real.
Got any more nuggets of bullshit in your sling, mate?
Oh boy, an Englishman who acts like Spain exists to serve them like a fucking resort. We've never seen that here - starting to see why you have trouble, "mate".
Having lived in other countries, people in Barcelona are far more tolerant of people who don't speak the language, especially compared to the Anglosphere. Where it seems most people don't even speak one language properly, much less multiple.
Oh, do please keep downvoting away. The breeze is slight, and your characterisation of me is so hilariously offbase that it's almost like an entertainment industry in itself, lol.
What is this? Beat your wannabe strawman day?
Lol, I'm not quite sure how to say that in Spanish, so... yeah. But please do GTFO with your complete bullshit prevarication upon what I already explained about my stepmom's experience.
And here's a bonus-- this is not an uncommon experience for women who experience Barcelona, genio grandisimo as you seem to style yourself.
Llora mas, grosero.
this is not an uncommon experience for women who experience Barcelona
They're criticized about their Spanish?
Funny, my house is full of women, not all of whom are native speakers. We often have visitors from other countries, who don't speak perfect Spanish. None of them have ever reported what you describe.
But from my brief interaction with you, if your stepmother is anything like you, I understand.
Nice to meet you, Idiot.
HairyHarry
What I've learned from this post: Barceloneta are a complete bag of assholes & idiots.
Which... kinda sucks, as someone who kind of loves hyping up and appreciating other peoples and cultures. Damn.
Man if you make such broad strokes off of a couple of internet comments then maybe you should take a break and do something else for a while.
You may be correct, sir.
And that would make sense, if not for my stepmom's experience (and other experiences I've heard over the years), which I just talked about above.
But here's the thing-- we already know that various areas of Europe are completely wrapped up in their pockets of toxic, masochistic, exclusionary cultures, and *everything* that was said above just confirmed it to me for Barcelona in particular.
Problem..?
"What, I just went into Belfast and said how much I appreciate the people as proud Englishmen? What a bag of assholes and idiots!"
Interesting scenario you chose right there.
My stepmom (who already spoke Castellano like a pro) was simply trying to do tourist things and enjoy the experience. She wasn't trying to be the 'loud, typical Aussie / American / etc' type of tourist.
Why is she the 'bad guy' in this situation...?
The scenario is that, coming into Barcelona and affecting a Madrid accent, isn't "hyping up and appreciating other peoples and cultures". In fact, it's like exactly not that. See if you can figure out why from the example I gave you.
Yeah, you seem nice, guiri.
That's not a myth in Spain, Mexico, or any other country.
I thought you were big on learning about other cultures?

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