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Speaking about linguistic minorities, here in Southern Italy there are some small towns speaking ancient Albanian called "Arbëreshë" [1], they have even orthodox churches [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arb%C3%ABresh%C3%AB_people
> ‘Adonaj es mi pastor. No mankare de nada’ (The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want) Mancare in Italian is to miss/need/be lacking, and although mancar in modern Portuguese is to limp, archaic Portuguese used it in the Italian sense. > I had to listen carefully to understand, hearing words like fazer (to do) and lavorar (to work) that sounded more like Portuguese and Italian than modern Spanish. I heard sounds lik…
It's actually interesting how the left and right have such a strong figurative meaning to them, left being bad (sinister, gauche, etc...) and right being... well, righteous. It's embedded deeply in our languages.
Speaking about linguistic minorities, here in Southern Italy there are some small towns speaking ancient Albanian called "Arbëreshë" [1], they have even orthodox churches [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arb%C3%ABresh%C3%AB_people
Arbëresh isn’t "ancient Albanian". Arbëresh does retain a few early modern Albanian features that have been lost in the dialects spoken within Albania and the literary standard, but Arbëresh has undergone plenty of innovations of its own.
This is slightly tagential, but bare with me... Nationalism and nation states. We live in a nationalist world. All places and all people are politically divided into nations. Nationalism is so dominant that we barely think of it as a thing. Anyway.. ladino & it's speakers are descendants of refugees from the spanish reconquista and inquisition period. It's generally seen though a christian/muslim lens, but this isn't…
This is slightly tagential, but bare with me... Nationalism and nation states. We live in a nationalist world. All places and all people are politically divided into nations. Nationalism is so dominant that we barely think of it as a thing. Anyway.. ladino & it's speakers are descendants of refugees from the spanish reconquista and inquisition period. It's generally seen though a christian/muslim lens, but this isn't…
Just to add to this, actually Ottoman Empire's parliament had more representation for minorities than the current parliament of Turkey which is a funny fact. Despite this, conditions were already bad for minorities as you mentioned. Look at the Turkish Parliament now, Kurdish representation is constantly being oppressed, there is almost no representation for other minorities such as Christians, Armenians.
> ‘Adonaj es mi pastor. No mankare de nada’ (The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want) Mancare in Italian is to miss/need/be lacking, and although mancar in modern Portuguese is to limp, archaic Portuguese used it in the Italian sense. > I had to listen carefully to understand, hearing words like fazer (to do) and lavorar (to work) that sounded more like Portuguese and Italian than modern Spanish. I heard sounds lik…
Regarding your note there are other examples of false friends which make for funny pairs. Italian "sinistro" is left, but in French (and from there English) "sinistre/sinister" has a completely different meaning. Now we have a similar thing between French and English: "gauche" means left in French but "Lacking grace or social polish; awkward or tactless" in English. It's actually interesting how the left and right ha…
There are a few possible explanations here, regarding sinister:
This is slightly tagential, but bare with me... Nationalism and nation states. We live in a nationalist world. All places and all people are politically divided into nations. Nationalism is so dominant that we barely think of it as a thing. Anyway.. ladino & it's speakers are descendants of refugees from the spanish reconquista and inquisition period. It's generally seen though a christian/muslim lens, but this isn't…
This is slightly tagential, but bare with me... Nationalism and nation states. We live in a nationalist world. All places and all people are politically divided into nations. Nationalism is so dominant that we barely think of it as a thing. Anyway.. ladino & it's speakers are descendants of refugees from the spanish reconquista and inquisition period. It's generally seen though a christian/muslim lens, but this isn't…