Influences

Posts0Likes0Joined19/9/2019LocationSão Paulo / BR
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In Brazilian Portuguese we may find traits of other languages, be it pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. All our different accents have those influences, for instance, the "carioca" very influenced by the European Portuguese final "s", the "paulistano" with an Italian prosody and intonation, the "paulista" with an indigenous language pronunciation of the "r" (which is the same of the English retroflex "r"), Bantu vocabulary added to everyday life language, etc. What about your mother tongue? What influences does it have?

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Posts1696Likes1125Joined18/3/2018LocationBellingham / US
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The biggest "influencers" of English are French, Latin and Greek. I didn't count Germanic languages because, in my mind, they are the natural predecessors of English. 

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leosmith wrote:
The biggest "influencers" of English are French, Latin and Greek. I didn't count Germanic languages because, in my mind, they are the natural predecessors of English.
But how about American English? Did it have any influence of indigenous and/or African languages? I've never heard anything about this, but it's surprising that those populations didn't bring any changes to the language.

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Posts1696Likes1125Joined18/3/2018LocationBellingham / US
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Valeria.Fontes wrote:
But how about American English? Did it have any influence of indigenous and/or African languages? I've never heard anything about this, but it's surprising that those populations didn't bring any changes to the language.

Other than names of places, they have influenced American English very little.

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