# Portuguese and German- linked?



## ayupshiplad

I've been wondering for a while now if there is any reason why Portuguese and German would be linked? They share some similar words, I can not think of many at the moment at all, but from what I can remember:

Ferias- Ferien
Tchau- Tschuss

I know it is not a lot to go on! I would appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this, as I really can't see any reason for the two languages to be linked! 

Thanks in advance.


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## stooge1970

Hi. 

I don't really know any German and my Portuguese is not fantastic but something that you should keep in mind is that the two languages are both Indo-European, and thus they do derive from a common ancestor that was spoken several thousand years ago. Also, German has a lot of influence from Latin, and Portuguese is derived from Latin, so this can account for lots similarities. And of course there are always words borrowed from other languages: "tchau" comes from the Italian "ciao". I'm sure both languages have also borrowed words from English in recent times.

Sorry this isn't very specific.

Regards.


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## Arrius

Even Welsh, Russian, Hindi/Urdu and Farsi (Persian) are linked with both German and Portuguese, but apart from the common European core of vocabulary with words like Reaktion (Ger.) and reacçao (Port.) - for reaction - and the fact that the structure of the two languages is closer than either one to the totally alien Arabic or Chinese, it is extremely difficult for a German or a Portuguese speaker to get much out of one another's languages without a great deal of preparation. Even an Englishman, whose language is said to be Germanic, can understand hardly a word of a German text without instruction. He might recognize some of the words in a written Portuguese text from the Latin words in his own language, but the spoken language would meet with total incomprehension. Suggest you have a look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoeuropean_languages


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## Sepia

ayupshiplad said:


> I've been wondering for a while now if there is any reason why Portuguese and German would be linked? They share some similar words, I can not think of many at the moment at all, but from what I can remember:
> 
> Ferias- Ferien
> Tchau- Tschuss
> 
> I know it is not a lot to go on! I would appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this, as I really can't see any reason for the two languages to be linked!
> 
> Thanks in advance.



Lots of expressions that have to do with commerce, accounting or religion came from Latin and Italian - which should not be any surprise.

I'd count "Ferias- Ferien" to those groups - I am not sure the two words have the same meaning, though. In Spanish/German they don't although the common origin is obvious, as you have noticed.

About "Tchau - Tschüss" I dont know.


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## Arrius

Both Portuguese *férias* and Spanish *feria *(holiday) have the same derivation as English *fair*, and German *die Ferien* (the holidays) all coming from Vulgar Latin *feria* which in turn derives from Classical latin* feriae* = _festival._ This is hardly surprising as _festivals _are originally religious occasions and Latin is the traditional language of the Catholic Church.
Ciao is an Italian salutation that has spread to many other countries:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=475558
It derives ultimately from Latin *Servus tuus*, your servant, via Italian *Sono il suo schiavo* (I am your servant/slave) which was corrupted to *Ciao*. German _Tschüß _is not connected with this since it comes from French _adieu_ (literally,to God).


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## ayupshiplad

Thanks for all the information, guys. I knew they were both Indoeuropean but I wanted a little more explanation than that


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## Whodunit

Arrius said:


> ... it is extremely difficult for a German or a Portuguese speaker to get much out of one another's languages without a great deal of preparation.



It depends.  From what I have learned about languages, I can easily read and understand written Dutch (less of the spoken). If you know that _taal_, for example, is related to _er*zähl*en_ and English _tell_, you can guess its meaning in context. I can't, however, understand Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian without any preparation, as you said.



> Even an Englishman, whose language is said to be Germanic, can understand hardly a word of a German text without instruction.


He might understand and realize that _Vater_ and _father _mean the same, but then it comes to cases and inflections English speakers are not used to. 



> He might recognize some of the words in a written Portuguese text from the Latin words in his own language, but the spoken language would meet with total incomprehension.


It depends on the native language. If it is English, he won't understand anything except for some parts of other Germanic languages. The same goes for Slavic, Celtic, Romance etc. languages. They can sometimes understand a text of a languages they have never studied, but never outside the respective branch of the language family.

PS: German folk etymology tells that _Ferien_ comes from French _faire rien_.


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## palomnik

As most of the foreros have indicated, the majority of words you'll run across that appear similar between German and Portuguese are originally Latin borrowings.

There are a number of words in Portuguese that come from Visigothic and Swabian, which were Germanic languages, but it's not likely that the similarity would jump out at you at first glance (e.g., "guerra" is related to English "war").

I've never heard anybody mention this in connection with Portuguese, although I've heard the comment about similarities between Spanish and German a number of times, and I think it has more to do with word order in basic sentences than with vocabulary.


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## ayupshiplad

Whodunit said:


> PS: German folk etymology tells that _Ferien_ comes from French _faire rien_.


 
Ah...I wish it were true!


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## Outsider

Portuguese and Spanish have a few loanwords from Gothic, an ancient Germanic language now extinct, from the time when the peninsula was governed by the Visigoths in the early Middle Ages, but other than that neither of the two has any special connection to German. The words you mentioned are (western) European commonalities.


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## konungursvia

They are related as they are both Indo-European, but having said that, looking for "relations" by noting a couple of similar words is very unscientific. No serious linguist would take that method seriously, because languages borrow words.  Turkish is not related to Indonesian, but both share many American computer words ("internet") and some Latin words too. So what?


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## Henryk

My Portuguese tutor always pointed out in class that the Swabians took the "sh"-s to Portugal. Accordingly people in Baden Wuerttemberg and the Portuguese pronounce the "s" in the same way today.

However, I'm not that versed in history and haven't come to verify that yet. Ok, this has nothing to do with vocabulary but it is at least something else that "German" and Portuguese have got in common.


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## Outsider

Henryk said:


> My Portuguese tutor always pointed out in class that the Swabians took the "sh"-s to Portugal. Accordingly people in Baden Wuerttemberg and the Portuguese pronounce the "s" in the same way today.
> 
> However, I'm not that versed in history and haven't come to verify that yet. Ok, this has nothing to do with vocabulary but it is something else that "German" and Portuguese have got in common.


I find it very doubtful. The "sh" you talk about can also be heard in Ladino, but my bet would be that it's a development made in recent centuries. 

The evidence: 

1) Most Brazilians do not have it. If the Swabians had communicated that trait to the Portuguese in the Middle Ages, Brazilians should have it too.

2) Galician does not have it, even though the Swabians dominated the whole of Galicia as well.

3) The northeastern dialects of Portuguese, which are in many ways the most conservative, also do not have that trait.

Still, it is a curious coincidence.


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## Juan Carlos Garling

Whodunit said:


> It depends.  From what I have learned about languages, I can easily read and understand written Dutch (less of the spoken). If you know that _taal_, for example, is related to _er*zähl*en_ and English _tell_, you can guess its meaning in context.


An interesting point and this allows us to reflect on the frequent similarity between English and _Plattdeutsch_ (Low German) words.

_Plattdeutsch_ was spoken (and still is in rural areas) along the Baltic and North Sea coast and particularly by the members of the Hansa, the North German trade association. It became _lingua franca_ and it was therefore relatively easy for English merchants and sailors to communicate phonetically with their German counterparts of the Hansa. Also Dutch is in fact a variant of Low German.

Following your example :
_erzählen (High German) = tellen (Low German) = to tell (Engl.)_
_machen (High German) = maken (Low German) = to make (Engl.)_
_Himmel (High German) = Heven (Low German) = heaven (Engl.)_
_Sonne (High German) = Sünn (Low German) = sun (Engl.)_
_Fuss (High German) = Foot (Low German) foot (Engl.)_
_Gabel (High German) = Fork (Low German) = fork (Engl.)_
_Schiff (High German) = Schipp (Low German) = ship (Engl.)_
_Wasser (High German) = Water (Low German) = water (Engl.)_
_Meer (High German( = See (Low German) sea (Engl.)_
_Katze (High German) = Katt (low German) = cat (Engl.)_
_Schmied (High German) = Schmitt (Low German) = smith (Engl.)_
_Tür (High German) = Dör (Low German) = door (Engl.)_
_Pflanze (High German) = Plant (Low German) = plant (Engl.)_

Influence of Plattdeutsch of the old days is still occasionally observed in the sailors' jargon in English ports.


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## jaxlarus

All these remind me of some of the linguistic classes I took in university. The consonant shifts are governed by linguistic laws. If you're really interested, take a look at these:
Grimm's Law
Verner's Law
Second Germanic Consonant Shift
As for any additional similarities between Portuguese and German, we all have to keep in mind that the Suebi and Visigoths, who invaded the roman province of Lusitania (what is now central Portugal) and the Iberian peninsula in general, where both Germanic tribes. The newcomers, though, quickly adopted the Vulgar Latin dialects of the peninsula and their influence on the language was rather minor and mostly limited to words linked to the military, such as *guerra *"war" (as already mentioned above), *espora * "spur" and* estaca* "stake".

Portuguese is in any case a Romance language and thus more closely related to, say, Spanish and French, rather than Germanic languages such as German or Dutch.

Compare:
She always shuts the window before dining. 
_Ela fecha sempre a janela antes de jantar._ (Portuguese)_
Ela pecha sempre a xanela/fiestra antes de cear._ (Galician)_
Ella pieslla siempre la ventana primero de cenar_ (Asturian)_
Ella cierra siempre la ventana antes de cenar._ (Spanish)_
Ella tanca sempre la finestra abans de sopar._ (Catalan)_
Ella barra sempre la finestra abans de sopar._ (Occitan)
_Ella_ / _lei_ _chiude sempre la finestra prima di cenare._ (Italian)
_Ea închide întotdeauna fereastra înainte de a cina._ (Romanian)_
Elle ferme toujours la fenêtre avant de dîner/souper._ (French)
_Illa claudit semper fenestram ante quam cenat._ (Latin)

[From Wikipedia: Portuguese language]​


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## mjb1005

ayupshiplad said:


> I've been wondering for a while now if there is any reason why Portuguese and German would be linked? They share some similar words, I can not think of many at the moment at all, but from what I can remember:
> 
> Ferias- Ferien
> Tchau- Tschuss
> 
> I know it is not a lot to go on! I would appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this, as I really can't see any reason for the two languages to be linked!
> 
> Thanks in advance.



Hello!

You may be interested in a Project called Traces of History out of the University of Oslo. There is a team of amazing linguists working on linking Romance and Germanic languages together, and much more I believe. They actually have encountered empirical data to prove it.

-Mateo


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## Nino83

ayupshiplad said:


> I've been wondering for a while now if there is any reason why Portuguese and German would be linked?



No.



ayupshiplad said:


> They share some similar words, I can not think of many at the moment at all, but from what I can remember:
> Ferias- Ferien, Tchau- Tschuss



Also Italian and Finnish share some word like rosa/roosa (pink) or grano/graani (grain), but the Finnish ones are borrowings from Latin.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/roosa
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/graani 

Oops, the original post was dated 2007...


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## Angelo di fuoco

Juan Carlos Garling said:


> An interesting point and this allows us to reflect on the frequent similarity between English and _Plattdeutsch_ (Low German) words.
> 
> _Plattdeutsch_ was spoken (and still is in rural areas) along the Baltic and North Sea coast and particularly by the members of the Hansa, the North German trade association. It became _lingua franca_ and it was therefore relatively easy for English merchants and sailors to communicate phonetically with their German counterparts of the Hansa. Also Dutch is in fact a variant of Low German.
> 
> Following your example :
> _erzählen (High German) = tellen (Low German) = to tell (Engl.)_



The Low German verb corresponding to erzählen is *ver*tellen. The verb tellen also exists, but it means "to count" (zählen). The two words are etymologically related, but still, there are differences in meaning.



Juan Carlos Garling said:


> _Gabel (High German) = Fork (Low German) = fork (Engl.)_



Low German and English have a number of Latinisms / Gallicisms that High German does not have. High German, though, does have Forke (f) as a synonym of Heugabel / Mistgabel (hayfork / pitchfork).
German Gabel (Old High German: gablo)  is etymologically related to English gavel (older form: gafol).



Juan Carlos Garling said:


> _Meer (High German( = See (Low German) sea (Engl.)_



That's a simplification. High German Meer is obviously a latinism. However, there is both _der See_ (lake) from Southern German and _die See_ (sea) from Northern (Low) German.



jaxlarus said:


> Portuguese is in any case a Romance language and thus more closely related to, say, Spanish and French, rather than Germanic languages such as German or Dutch.
> 
> Compare:
> She always shuts the window before dining.
> _Ela fecha sempre a janela antes de jantar._ (Portuguese)
> [...]
> _Ella cierra siempre la ventana antes de cenar._ (Spanish)
> 
> [...]
> _Illa claudit semper fenestram ante quam cenat._ (Latin)
> 
> [From Wikipedia: Portuguese language]​



In Spanish, there's the very rare _yantar_ with exactly the same meaning as jantar/cenar.
Portuguese knows not only fechar, but also encerrar, with the same meaning as Spanish encerrar.

One question: does the _ante quam cenat_ with indicative strike only me as strange/erroneous?
I haven't studied Latin, but, knowing some Romance languages, I would expect the subjunctive mood (cenet) here.


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## Nino83

Angelo di fuoco said:


> One question: does the _ante quam cenat_ with indicative strike only me as strange/erroneous?
> I haven't studied Latin, but, knowing some Romance languages, I would expect the subjunctive mood (cenet) here.



I've found these sentences:
«Priusquam Cicero *oravit*, omnes tacebant in Senatu.» «Prima che Cicerone *parlasse*, in Senato tutti tacevano.»
«Antequam Iuppiter *irascetur*, fulmina videbimus.» «Prima che Giove *si arrabbi*, vedremo i fulmini (fatto probabile, non certo).»

"All'indicativo indicano un fatto reale e certo, al congiuntivo un fatto possibile (congiuntivo eventuale)"

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposizione_temporale_latina

It seems you can use both indicative and subjunctive.  

Another example from Cicero: "ante quam delectata *est* atheniensium civitas hac laude dicendi"


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## Frank78

Angelo di fuoco said:


> That's a simplification. High German Meer is obviously a* latinism*. However, there is both _der See_ (lake) from Southern German and _die See_ (sea) from Northern (Low) German.



What makes you think so? The word (has) existed in almost all Germanic languages.

"See" and "Meer" exist in High and Low German, just with opposite meanings.


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## berndf

Angelo di fuoco said:


> That's a simplification. High German Meer is obviously a latinism. However, there is both _der See_ (lake) from Southern German and _die See_ (sea) from Northern (Low) German.


Frank is right. Both words are native in both Low and High German and the original meaning was _Meer=lake, swamp_ and _See=large body of standing water _which could be either a lake of a sea. The gender of _See/sea_ was variable (f/m) in all West-Germanic languages. _See_ locked into the meaning _lake_ and masculine gender in High German and into the meaning _sea_ and feminine Gender in Low German.

The only thing that *might *be due to romance influence is the shift in meaning of_ Meer_ from _lake_ to _sea_ in High German induced by the similarity with _mare_. But the secondary meaning _sea, ocean_ for the cognates of _Meer _is attested in other old Germanic languages as well. So it is not clear if Romance had anything to do with it. The only thing we can say is that both words had an inherent ambiguity and just "froze" in opposite ways in Low and High German.


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