Disclaimer: I’m aware of the fact that these are not the only Romance languages in existence. Despite that, I thought it’d be much more helpful to focus uniquely on Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese and, to a lesser degree, Romanian.
Italian, Spanish and Portuguese have a more phonemic orthography than French. In French, numerous letters are silent and multiple words are pronounced identically despite having a different spelling
to my knowledge, French is the only (official) Romance language where personal pronouns cannot be omitted
Italian words ending in -zione correspond to Spanish-ción, French-tion Portuguese-ção
both Italianno and non translate to Spanishno, Portuguesenão and Frenchnon and ne .. pas
the sound [t͡ʃ] is represented by the digraphs ci- and ce- in Italian and ch- in Spanish, e.g.
It. Cina Sp. China
in Italian the combination qu-is pronounced /kw/, whereas it’s pronounced /k/ in Spanish and French, and /k/ and /kw/ in Portuguese depending on the following vowel. Consider this:
It.quando [kw-] Fr.quand [kɑ̃] Sp.cuando [kw-]
It.chi [k-] Fr.qui [k-] Sp.quien [k-]
Port.quando [kw-] Port. quem [k-]
in Italian the sounds /ge/, /gɛ/* and /gi/ are spelt ghe- and ghi-, whereas they’re spelt gue- and gui- in Spanish, e.g.
It.ghepardo [ge-] Sp.guepardo [ge-]
It. ghirlanda [gi-] Sp. guirlanda [gi-]
* Standard Castilian does not present the sound /ɛ/.
in Italian the sounds /gwe/, /gwɛ/* and /gwi/ are spelt gue- and gui-, and güe- and güi- in Spanish. On the other hand, Frenchgue- and -gue are pronounced /gɛ/ and /ɡ/, whereas gui- is pronounced either /gwi-/ or /ɡɥi/.
It.guelfo [gwɛ-] Sp.güelfo [gue-] Fr.guerre [gɛ-] Fr. langue [-g]
It. linguistica [-gwi-] Sp. lingüistica [-gwi-] Fr. linguistique [-gwi-] or [-ɡɥi-]
* Standard Castilian does not present the sound /ɛ/.
Italian and Romanian do not form their plurals by adding -s or -es at the end of a word like in the rest of the Romance languages, e.g.
It. buono, buoni Rom. bun, buni Sp. bueno, buenos Fr. bon, bons Port. bom, bons
Italian is the only (official) Romance Language to have derived two distinct prepositions from the Latin preposition de, e.g.
Di: from Lat. de “of”
It. sono di Napoli Sp. soy de Nápoles Fr. je suis de Naples Port. eu sou de Nápoles
Da: from Lat. de ab > *da(b) >da “from”
It. vengo da Napoli Sp. vengo de Nápoles Fr. je viens de Naples Port. eu venho de Nápoles
Italian, like French, has direct and indirect as well as stressed and unstressed personal pronouns
in Italian and Portuguese, unlike in Spanish and French, possessive adjectives are always* preceded by an article, e.g.
It. il mio libro (cf. Cat. el meu llibre) Port.o meu livro** Sp. mi libro Fr. mon livre
* in Italian, possessive adjectives are not preceded by an article when the following noun refer to a family member, e.g. mia madre (not la mia madre).
** posessive adjectives proceeded by articles are more common in European Portuguese.
in Italian the word perché means both why and because, whereas they change based on their function in Spanish, Portuguese and French
Italianper and Frenchpour translate to both Spanish and Portuguesepor and para
in Italian,Spanish and Portuguese, unlike in French, object personal pronouns are usually appended to infinitives and gerunds, e.g.
It. posso farlo (lo posso fare) Sp. puedo hacerlo (lo puedo hacer) Port. posso faze-lo Fr. je peux le faire
in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French, the subjunctive mood works similarly but not identically
there are more cognates between Italian and French, and Italian and Spanish than there are between Spanish and French, e.g.
It. casa Fr. maison Sp. casa
It. testa / capo Fr. tête Sp. cabeza
It. mangiare Fr. manger Sp. comer
in Italian, graphic accents are only limited to oxytones, that is to say words having the stress on the last syllable, e.g. papà, città, caffè, etc
Italian is the only (official) Romance language that phonetically distinguishes single and double consonants, e.g. caro/carro, copia/coppia, papa/pappa, etc. are all pronounced differently (with the exception of the double -rr- in Spanish and Portuguese)
in Italian and French two vowels next to each other undergo elision and an apostrophe is used, but not in Spanish and Portuguese*, which do not make use of apostrophe. This usually happens with the Italian definite articles lo/la/le and Frenchle/la, e.g.
It. la + energia = l'energia Fr. la + énergie = l'énergie Sp. la + energía = la energía
* Portuguese uses the apostrophe almost exclusively in poetry, e.g. de + agua = d’agua.
Spanish and Portuguese are notable amongst Romance languages for not having specific pronouns referring to place and quantity
It. ci vado Fr. j’y vais Sp. voy Port. vou
It. bevo dell’acqua Fr. je bois de l’eau Sp. bebo agua Port. bebo água
It. ne ho quattro Fr. j’en ai quatre Sp. tengo cuatro Port. tenho quatro
Italian and French use both essere/être and avere/avoir to form compound verbs, but not Modern Spanish and Portuguese, which only use haber/ter (or haver)
It.ero venuto Fr. je suis venu Sp.he venido Port. tenho vindo
unlike French,Spanish and Portuguese, during its slow evolution Italian dropped the etymological initial h- (silent in all Romance language) in words which originally started with said mute consonant, e.g. Lat. honore(m)
Old It. honore > It. onore Fr. honneur Sp. honor* Port. honra
* it should be noted that not all Spanish words starting with h- etymologically carried it, e.g. Lat. ovu[m] > Sp. huevo.
I don’t think a lot of younger Tumblr users understand what life during the anime boom was like in 1999-2007. How accessible anime was at the time. It was fucking everywhere. It wasn’t even a niche, literally everyone was into it.
Like, Cartoon Network showed stuff like YuYu Hakusho, .hack//sign, Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, Tenchi Muyo, and Rurouni Kenshin every weekday after school on their Toonami block.
I remember rushing home after school in second grade to watch Rurouni Kenshin. That was 7 year old me’s favorite show.
You think Pokemon is popular now? HA! In the late 90′s, it was every parent’s worst nightmare. It was on the cover of Time Magazine for fucks’s sake. EVERY kid was obsessed with it. No exceptions. At least, until Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh came around…
You could wake up on Saturday mornings and watch highly Americanized butchered versions of Shaman King, Tokyo Mew Mew (”Mew Mew Power”), and most infamously, One Piece thanks to 4kids.
An anime getting an extremely butchered Americanized dub was a very real, legitimate threat that could happen to any show.
Staying up late enough to watch Inuyasha was considered a rite of passage.
Teenage girls flocked to Barnes and Noble to read entire volumes of Fruits Basket and Fushigi Yuugi in the store without paying for them.
All of the kids cartoons tried to cash in on the craze. I’m sure everyone remembers Avatar and Teen Titans, but trust me when I say that you DON’T want to remember Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi and Kappa Mikey.
Hayao Miyazaki won an Academy Award.
Final Fantasy VII was considered the greatest video game ever made.
Some people still called it “Japanimation”.
So many fucking magazines. Off the top of my head: Animerica, Shonen Jump, Shojo Beat, Newtype USA (the best one by far), Anime Insider, Beckett Anime, and Beckett Anime For Girls (The most cringeworthy one. Of course I had every issue!)
Anime was freaking everywhere. The entire country was in its weeb phase. Some people on this website are too young to even remember this.
I can’t believe Sailor Moon was never mentioned in this post.
Seriously. I woke up early for school every day to watch Sailor Moon on channel 5.
I’m not even an anime nerd, but I know ALL these names. You don’t even know how everywhere it was!
You couldn’t NOT watch Pokemon in the same way you can’t NOT watch Game of Thrones today. Yami yugi (because that was his name in the aforementioned butchered American dub) was my first crush. I tried to watch Dragonball Z because it was on ALL THE FREAKING TIME on Cartoon Network (toonami, anyone remember that?) and couldn’t get into it.
I remember when we lived in California my mother used to take my sister and I all down to the same hair and nail salon to get hair cuts. It was run by these really nice Japanese ladies who sometimes did my nails and my sister’s for free (I was no more than 5 at the time so these were some tiny nails to practice on). But every time we went they had Sailor Moon on and I was always so excited to go because I was always in school when it was on at home.
It was the end of August — the time when owls hoot at night and flurries of bats swoop noiselessly over the garden. Moomin Wood was full of glow-worms, and the sea was disturbed. There was expectation and a certain sadness in the air, and the harvest moon came up huge and yellow. Moomintroll had always liked those last weeks of summer most, but he didn’t really know why.
Finn Family Moomintroll, by Tove Jansson (via silvermarmoset)
I love the “they’re injecting halal thru vaccines!!” post because it means these people think that Islam is literally contagious like if a Muslim bites you you’re gonna start growing a beard and speaking Arabic on the next full moon
