Talk:Portuguese language/Archive 5

message: Cafune is depicted in the article as being of african origin, while I believe it is of tupi-guarani origin. LtDoc 17:24, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hoauiss brings the following in the etymological field of its electronic edition (I haven't compared it to the paper edition, though I assume there'll be no differences): 'origem controversa; segundo Nei Lopes, do quimbundo kifune, singular de ifune "estalidos produzidos com os dedos na cabeça"; para Nascentes, do quimbundo kifunate "entorce, torcedura, torção"; segundo Antônio Geraldo da Cunha, do quimbundo kafu'ndu "cravar, enterrar"'. The three sources he quotes, therefore, seem to indicate an African origin of the word, although there's indeed some obscurity about it. Psi-Lord 10:23, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cafuné 

message: I hate to say it but this seems absurd.  In what sense is it the closest?  Sounds?  Vocabulary?  I have heard Piauenses speak and I have heard Portuguese speak and frankly I see no connection. What is the source for this statement? vogensen 14:35, 15 December 2005
* The Brazilian Academy of Letters. And I've also heard that and I agree.--Pedro 18:33, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I take it you didn't bother to look at the numbers. FilipeS 14:52, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Those figures are obviously wrong. No serious linguist would accept the notion that Portuguese is the native language of 60 % of the population in Angola, much less 20 % of the population of Namibia ! 200.177.7.72 00:47, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm also sure that 'no serious linguist' would dismiss a reputable source in exchange for no source at all. Get back to us when you have one. FilipeS 16:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Dialect of Piauí closest to European Portuguese?

message: This is sad. No mention about the most notorious and internationally recognized writer of Portuguese language. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 201.29.52.3 (talk • contribs) 
:Please don't hesitate to include information about him, anon, but I suggest you do it at Portuguese literature. This article is intended to be about the nature of the language from a more strictly linguistic perspective.
:Peter Isotalo 15:34, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where is [[Machado de Assis]]? 

message: Image:Map-Lusophone World.png|Map of a better quality, without country names.
Image:Lusophoneworld.JPG|Lower quality, with country names.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.244.80.175 (talk • contribs) 15:17, 11 January 2006  (UTC)
Please improve the first one if you can.
Yug 11:58, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This section is not usefull now, the merge of the 2 map is done. Yug (talk) 00:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Because Portuguese is spoken as a first language only in Brazil and Portugal. Gameiro 14:55, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Never been to Angola. But according to the information in this article, Portuguese is spoken as the first language by more than half of the Angolan people. Qrfqr 05:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Better map, without name 

message: I just cleaned up some of the wording in the Geographic Distribution section, but I didn't quite know what to do about this.  The sentence implies that they are the two fastest growing western languages, without saying which one actually is.  I suspect that Spanish actually is, since otherwise it would probably not be mentioned at all, in which case it would be clearer to write "Portuguese is the second fastest growing western language (after Spanish)".  If Portuguese is the fastest growing, just leave Spanish out of it. But a citation to the statistics that show this (verifiable content) would be needed, and I didn't find one. @alex 02:27, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Portuguese is, with Spanish, the fastest growing western language"? 

message: I reinstated most of the lead, but moved some of the more tedious lists which were already available elsewhere in the article and removed minor details. I must object to the shortening of the lead in general, since the suggested cap is set at about two or three paragraphs (see Wikipedia:Lead section, and an article that is around 50k can surely afford to have a lead that is more than a single paragraph in length. Simply moving most of it under a header called "The language" is exactly what Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Introductory material explains you should  not do. A section called "The language" in an article about a language is in no way different from a section entitled "Introduction".
I also removed the table as per the talkpage comments.
Peter Isotalo 09:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's fine at its current length.  The problem before was that on a default-sized browser, the lead filled up not just one but two screenfuls.  This could lead the casual reader to think that the article was just a single mass of unorganized text.  Seeing the table of contents on the first screen, or at the very least within the first scrolling boundary, is much more inviting for the reader, and gives a visual cue that the article has structure. --TreyHarris 09:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The lead 

message: I had moved the IPAs and soundbite from the head line to a later paragraph, but it was moved back. The reason for my mode was that those items create a long break in the flow of the opening sentence without providing much value in return. They are of very little use to readers who are not Portuguese speakers (whereas the written autonym can be quite useful to a non-Portuguese reader, e.g. if he has to do bibliographic or google searches).
Besides, there are many Portuguese dialects, some of them with substantial differences in pronunciation; if we are to provide an IPA and soundbyte for every one, as justice demands, the opening sentence will become just awful. I think that this sort of information would be more appropriate for the pronunciation/dialects section. 
All the best, Jorge Stolfi 20:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: IPA and soundbite in the lead

message: I don't think people of Espirito Santo says in Fluminense-Rio style, this is a complete POV-pushing.
*The table was simplefied, I'll see if it was a deletion or a transportantion to another article. It previously stated that there were differences.
Dialectal zones of Brazil:
http://www.linguaportuguesa.ufrn.br/pt_3.3.b.php
You can see here more proper information: Portuguese dialects
There are another divisions for dialects.
It is not POV. Leia o link que lhe dei! -- Pedro 02:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Espirito Santo - Fluminense? 

message: I'd place Asturian language or Leonese language between Galician and Ladino.
Leonese was one of the influences in Ladino. --Error 01:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Asturian

message: Isn't the Romanian întotdeaună? --Error 01:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Romanian

message: :its declension system — a feature which has no counterpart in any of its daughter languages.
Romanian (and Rumansh?) has genitives-datives.
--Error 01:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops,thanks. Will fix. Jorge Stolfi 01:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Latin

message: :European Portuguese is often described as a stress-timed language (consistent with the its loss of pre-stress vowels), while Brazilian Portuguese is syllable-timed.
Isn't there a similar distinction between Jamaican English and British or American English, and between Spain's Spanish language and Mexican Spanish?
--Error 01:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Timing

message: :Está na hora de irmos embora.
Is this the same as Spanish Es la hora de irnos?
Then it is not so distinctive.
I think there are other cases where Portuguese infinitives depart from Spanish.
--Error 01:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's ab-so-lu-te-ly different! The "-nos", in Spanish, is a reflexive pronoun (forming a single phonological word with the verb), not a verb ending! The personal infintive is a very well-known difference between Portuguese and Spanish (I guess another difference is the future subjunctive). Please do not edit the article without being sure about what you're writing. Velho 18:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Infinitives

message: I removed this sentence since it seems to be a question of grammatical classification that is impossible to explain in the limited space of this article:
:There is no present or active participle in Portuguese, but many adjectives come from Latin present participles and carry more or less the same meaning. Some neologisms are created in the same pattern. Unlike English, these "present participles" are not identical in form with gerund.
This may make sense from the historical point of view, but as a description of the present reality is seems too convoluted. I bet that 99.99% of all Portuguese speakers who have studied grammar at school never understood the distinction betwen gerund and present participle. AFAIK, a simpler way of putting it is that the regular -ado form of almost any verb can be used both in compound tenses and as an adjective, while for some verbs these two uses have specific irregular forms.  Would you agree with this summary description? Jorge Stolfi 01:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no present or active participle in Portuguese, but many adjectives come from Latin present participles and carry more or less the same meaning. Some neologisms are created in the same pattern. Unlike English, these "present participles" are not identical in form with gerund — the former end in -nte, and the latter in -ndo(a).
--Wtrmute 02:30, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, I misunderstood the original sentence --- I thought that it was referring to the pairs like aceito/aceitado (there are better examples but I can't think of any at the moment). Jorge Stolfi 09:55, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Present participle vs Gerund

message: The article is getting way over 50 Kb again and the grammar section is still growing. Please use the main article as a general summary. There's a sub-article at Portuguese grammar where you can go into more detail.
Peter Isotalo 19:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree! But Stolfi's editing really reduced it.Velho 19:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I will try to move the gender section to the Grammar article, leaving only a short parag. Jorge Stolfi 21:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The grammar is growing 

message: A previous version of the Romance languages article claimed that all of them use the TENERE-derived verb (ter) for the sense of "to hold". That is correct in Italian and French, at least; but it seems incorrect for Portuguese.
Perhaps I need some caffeine, but I would swear that eu tenho o livro in current Portuguese means only "I have the book", never "I hold the book". I.e. "ter" = "to have (something)", not "to hold".  That is certainly true in Brazil (formal register included, not just "in some varieties").  To say "I hold the book" one would have to use some other verb, e.g. eu seguro o livro.
Of course tenho o livro na mão can be translated as "to hold", but that is no different than tenho uma arvore no quintal which must be translated as "I  have a tree in my yard"; so it is still an example of "to have (something)" rather than "to hold" (cf. Italian aveva il libro nella mano)  Without the adverbial "na mão", ter loses the sense of "hold" and reduces to "to have".
My Aurélio gives "ter = segurar", but the example shown is Não conseguiu ter por muito tempo a avezinha capturada, which sounds quite archaic to my ears. Is that sense current in European Portuguese?
Jorge Stolfi 19:18, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Avezinha does sound strange to my ears, although I don't think the sentece is archaic. However, even if that sentence has a certain meaning, I would't translate ter with segurar, but instead something close to hold. Segurar, to me, sounds like to be grabbing, which is of course not the case here. --Jotomicron | talk 21:26, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not sure I understood your reply. Are you an European Portuguese speaker? The translation "ter" = "segurar" is what the Aurélio dictionary gives for that example.  I am a Brazilian Portuguese speaker (or should be 8-), and to me "ter" never means "to hold", only "to have".  Thus, "ele tem uma chave" heans "he has a key" (could be in his hand, but also in his pocket, on his head, at home, etc.). If I had to say "he holds a key", specifically in his hand, I would have to say "ele está segurando uma chave" or "ele tem uma chave na mão". So are you saying tha in EP "ter" also means "to hold", and "segurar" means something stronger than just "to hold"? All the best, Jorge Stolfi 04:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeend, I'm an European Portuguese speaker. Now, I'd translate the sentence as you give it with something like He wasn't able to hold/keep the bird in captivity. Of course this sentence can also be Não conseguiu ter muito tempo a avezinha que tinha sido capturada previamente, in which case ter means possession and means to have (at first, I didn't realise this sentence could have this last meaning). So, I'd say that is some situations, "ter" = "to hold" is a valid meaning (and now, please, forget all my comments about segurar meaning only to grab, because that is just not the case.) --Jotomicron | talk 12:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is ''ter'' = "to hold" in Portuguese? 

message: A previous version of the Romance languages article claimed that tem means there is only in some variants of Brazilian portuguese.  However, in BP the existential tem is only moderately informal, and in fact seems much more common than há, as suggested by the Google searches below. Note that some of the hits seem to be in European Portuguese sites (but that is not at all certain, of course).
:"há horas que" "com.br"  226 hits
:"tem horas que" "com.br"  38,100 hits
:"há horas que" "com.pt"  29 hits
:"tem horas que" "com.pt"  174 hits
:"há horas em que" "com.br"  421 hits
:"tem horas em que" "com.br"  889 hits
:"há horas em que" "com.pt" 11 hits
:"tem horas em que" "com.pt"  4 hits
:"aqui sempre há" "com.br" 2,260 hits
:"aqui sempre tem" "com.br" 493 hits
:"aqui sempre há" "com.pt" 6 hits
:"aqui sempre tem" "com.pt" 2 hits
:"aqui há sempre" "com.br" 141 hits
:"aqui tem sempre" "com.br" 711 hits
:"aqui há sempre" "com.pt" 16 hits
:"aqui tem sempre" "com.pt" 10 hits
:"há sempre alguém que" "com.br" 988 hits
:"tem sempre alguém que" "com.br" 643 hits
:"há sempre alguém que" "com.pt" 355 hits
:"tem sempre alguém que" "com.pt" 3 hits
:"sempre há alguém que" "com.br" 281 hits
:"sempre tem alguém que" "com.br" 733 hits
:"sempre há alguém que" "com.pt" 4 hits
:"sempre tem alguém que" "com.pt" 8 hits
(anonymous)
* For Portugal use only .pt not .com.pt (those where introduced recently, and are not popular. These attempts to find differences in the popular use are extremelly ridicule. It is ok to say that Brazilians use você more than the Portuguese, and use more the geround more than the Portuguese, but a thing like that it is ridicule, at best. --Pedro 12:32, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is ''tem'' = "there is" in Portuguese? 

message: The table on this page currently says 410 million (after a recent edit by an anon IP), with no source cited, and with different information in the body of the article; but List of languages by number of native speakers says 213 million, and cites the 2005 World Almanac as its source.  I also found several web references that tend to corroborate the lower figure.  If someone wants to insert a higher figure into the article, please cite your source.  --Russ Blau (talk) 22:18, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fernando S. Aldado 04:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Portuguese has no more than 196 million native speakers (a little less than 180 million in Brazil, plus 10 million in Portugal, and at most another 6 million or so elsewhere in Africa and in the Portuguese diaspora). The 220-million figure mentioned in the Wikipedia article is an obvious overestimation and should be corrected. 200.177.7.72 00:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of speakers: source? 

message: I have deleted the following, which has two statements that I find doubtful:
" can occur in some European Portuguese socialects or sub-dialects, such as in cidade pronunced as . (Interestingly enough, this began among the women of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in the late 1940s and 1950s and soon spread among the general population (José Marquez da Cruz, Português Prático, Edições Melhoramentos: 1955).)"
Surely, the pronunciation would be , not . I suspect that who wrote this was thinking of the affricate pronunciation  in Brazilian Portuguese. In any case, these comments would best be put in the Portuguese phonology page. 193.136.232.3 19:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: {{IPA|[ð]}} originated in São Paulo and Rio?!

message: "At first, the Agreement established that its entrance into practice would only occur when all the countries of the CPLP had ratified it. But the Portuguese-speaking African countries have not ratified, possibly due to problems in implementing it. In the CPLP’s summit of 26–27 July 2004, an adjustment will prompt implementation when just three countries ratify it. The agreement will eliminate most first 'c's in 'cc', 'cç' or 'ct'; and 'p's in 'pc', 'pç' or 'pt' from European/ African Portuguese, the dieresis and accent marks in words ending in "éia" in Brazil and add some new spelling rules. And it will allow either orthography for words like anónimo or anônimo, depending on the dialect of the author or person being transcribed. Late in October 2004, Brazil became the first to approve the adjustment and asked its ambassadors in Portugal and Cape Verde to promote the rapid implementation in those countries. The agreement will enter into practice in the first day of the next month when the third country ratifies it."
It would be interesting if anyone can update the article to provide an update on this. The last mention is Brazil having ratified it in 2004. What has happened since? Also, it'd be interesting to see what exactly the new spelling rules are. Dan1113 17:45, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You'll find the full text of the agreement here: http://www.necco.ca/faq_acordo_ortografico.htm FilipeS 21:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language reform 

message: I am sorry to just barge into this specialists discussion (since my knowledge of my own language is, at best, just the average one), but i read through the whole article and saw no mention of the compound form of the future tense, which is so common (at least in Brazil)even to the point of completely replacing the regular simple one. Examples: Vou fazer (I will do/make), vou cantar (I will sing), ele vai ganhar (he`ll win/gain), etc. I suggest including it in the article. Best regards.
:The grammar section is still a bit poor... It needs a lot of work. FilipeS 21:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compound future tense 

message: The 'Other Romance Languages' section mentioned a "change of intervocalic  to " as a difference between Portuguese and Spanish, but neither language went through such change. The editor must have meant something else. FilipeS 20:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe they meant ʎ → j → ʒ/dʒ?  In some regions of Spanish this did happen, although granted the common pronunciation of ll today is [j] ... and it wasn't just an intervocalic change, though, if anything the ʒ/dʒ is heard more at the beginning of stressed syllables, or following /s/.  Hardly intervocalic …
I think what the editor meant to refer was a change of intervocalic  to , and then to , which I believe did occur in the evolution of Spanish. Cf. Port. filha [ʎ], Old Sp. hija [hiʒa], Modern Sp. hija [hixa], Port. trabalho [ʎ], Old Sp. trabajo [trabaʒo], Modern Sp. trabajo [trabaxo]. But I'm not sure if this is worth talking about in an article about Portuguese, which did not go through these sound changes. FilipeS 16:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change of intervocalic {{IPA|[ʎ]}} to {{IPA|[ʒ]}} 

message: I copied part of the information on the main Spanish language article to the Spanish x Portuguese comparison section in the Portuguese language article, as I feel that is a more appropriate place for that particular discussion. On top of that, I did some minor editing of my own. I also made a few changes to the Portuguese x Other Romance Languages section. Please feel free to revert to the previous version if you think my editing was not appropriate.200.177.17.130 02:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spanish x Portuguese (Editing changes)

message: I have made some changes to the phonetic transcription. Some of them are simple corrections of sounds which were incorrectly transcribed. I also changed the notation of the diphthongs, writing the semivowels as "weak" vowels (see the discussion of notation at semivowel and diphthong). When the last and the first vowel of two consecutive words assimilate, either merging or turning into semivowels, I wrote the two words without any space between them:
:Afeiçoada à gente Lusitana,
:
 
:Da antiga tão amada sua Romana;
:
:Nos fortes corações, na grande estrela,
:
This is consistent with the literary spellings afeiçoad'à, d'antiga, na grand'estrela but feel free to change it, if it's not the standard practice.  Further comments:
*The transcription is based on the pronunciation of Lisbon. I suppose one could use phonemic transcription, but it's probably more interesting to write down the phones themselves, even if it is at the expense of having to choose a particular accent to be transcribed.
*From the vowel table which is in the article, the phonemes  and  are actually pronounced  and  in the Portuguese of Lisbon, but I decided not to change their notation for now.
*The translation of the verses into English is a bit poor. It should be improved. FilipeS 15:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sample text from The Lusiads

message: This page seems to be biased to the viewpoint that Spanish is less advanced than Portuguese and that Galician is a dialect of Portuguese. If you read through it there is quite a bit of bias
What makes you say that? FilipeS 23:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  There is bias 

message: Velho, I noticed that you have edited the Sound section of the article on the Portuguese language, changing:
:There is a maximum of 9 oral vowels and 19 consonants, though some varieties of the language have fewer phonemes (Brazilian Portuguese has only 7 oral vowels). Five of the vowels have nasal allophones.
to
:There is a maximum of 9 oral monophthongs and 19 consonants, though some varieties of the language have fewer phonemes (Brazilian Portuguese has only 7 oral vowels). Five of the vowels have nasal allophones. There are also 10 oral diphthongs, 5 nasal diphthongs and 2 double nasal diphthongs.
I disagree with this change. Here are my reasons:
*The words "vowel" and "monophthong" are often used as synonyms, and the former is best known by the general public. "Monophthong" may be appropriate for the article specilized on Portuguese phonology, but not for a generic article on Portuguese.
*In the Wikipedia, "vowel" is often used as a synonym of "monophthong". See for example Spanish phonology, Italian phonology, French phonology, General American, and Received pronunciation. Note that all these languages have monophthongs and diphthongs, yet they refer to their monophthongs as "vowels".
*I do not think we should mention the diphthongs on the main page, because they are simply combinations of vowels.
*Note also that the general articles on Spanish phonology, Italian phonology, and French phonology do not mention diphthongs, and the article American English only barely mentions diphthongs.
*Wikipedia's table of vowels lists only monophthongs. 
Regards. FilipeS 11:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that we put "vowels" instead of "monophthongs", but the diphthongs line (it is just one line) should be kept. Diphthongs, oral and nasal, are an important trait of Portuguese, making it phonologically "rich". Velho 13:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it correct to say that Brazilian Portuguese has only 7 oral vowels ? I believe e.g. that the first "a" in "cama" and the first "a" in "carro" are different vowels. Could you confirm this ?
As far as I know, the first vowel in cama is nasal in Brazilian Portuguese. The word is basically pronounced [kãma]. FilipeS 23:20, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I would say it sounds more like [kʌma] as in American English "love".
Either way, in Brazilian Portuguese, that vowel you speak of is just an allophone of /a/. See Portuguese phonology. FilipeS 22:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vowels versus monophthongs 

message: Is there a reference for this?
:Almost 90% of the Portuguese vocabulary is derived from Latin; needless to say,  with substantial phonological and morphological changes which accumulated throughout its history. FilipeS 23:16, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Percentage of vocabulary derived from Latin

message: No consensus seems to have been reached above, but this paragraph needs to be cleaned up. Here is the current version, and the bits I think should be rewritten:
:The linguistic status of Galician with respect to Portuguese is controversial. Some authors, such as Lindley Cintra, consider that they are still dialects of a common language, in spite of superficial differences in phonology and vocabulary. Other authors such as Vázquez Cuesta argue that they have become separate languages. The official position of the Galician Language Academy and of most of Galician people is that modern Galician and modern Portuguese should be considered  independent languages due to major phonetic and vocabulary usage differences, and to a lesser extent, morphological and syntactical ones. The standard orthography takes advantage of the divergent features of the phonology of Galician to emphasize its differences from Portuguese, insisting on strictly phonetic spelling, and rejecting Portuguese graphic conventions such as circumflex and grave accents, tildes on vowels, or graphemes like nh, lh, j, in favour of ñ, ll, x, etc, some of them reflecting also the ancient Galician consonant spelling system, which does not match with modern, Occitan-influenced Portuguese ortography. The sociolinguistic and linguistic situation is reminiscent of the relations between Romanian and Moldovan, or between Catalan and Occitan. However it is a mostly politically-bonded discussion as the main supporters of the unicity of both languages have a definite profile as Galician nationalists and it is clearly oriented to preserve Galician use in front a more powerful language as Spanish.
Deletes:
#Reference to Vázquez Cuesta. Lindley Cintra's reference is ambiguous. It's not clear that she actively promoted the opinion that Portuguese and Galician are separate languages. It would be nice if someone could contribute with one or two authors who supported that position.
#Unsubstantiated claim about the opinion of "most of the Galician people".
#The redundant word "modern". "Old" Galician and Portuguese are known by the common name Galician-Portuguese.
#Reason for the GLI's position on the status of Galician. As the anonymous editor pointed out in the previous conversation, we cannot guess their motives (unless someone comes up with an official document of theirs that states it). I have, however, moved this argument to another part of the article (see below).
#Last sentence. I found it incomprehensible, asked the editor to clarify what he meant, but he never did. It doesn't seem to add anything which hadn't been already said in the paragraph, in any case.
Rewordings:
:Reason for preferring ñ, ll, x to nh, lh, j, etc. See the previous conversation. 
Here's the rewrite I suggest:
:The linguistic status of Galician with respect to Portuguese is controversial. Some authors, such as Lindley Cintra, consider that they are still dialects of a common language, in spite of superficial differences in phonology and vocabulary. Other authors argue that they have become separate languages due to major differences in phonetics and vocabulary usage, and, to a lesser extent, morphology and syntax. The official position of the Galician Language Institute is that Galician and Portuguese should be considered independent languages. The standard orthography takes advantage of the divergent features of the phonology of Galician to emphasize its differences from Portuguese, insisting on strictly phonetic spelling, and rejecting Portuguese graphic conventions such as circumflex and grave accents, tildes on vowels, or graphemes like nh, lh, j, in favour of ñ, ll, x, etc., with the argument that the latter spellings are the oldest. The sociolinguistic and linguistic situation is reminiscent of the relations between Romanian and Moldovan, or between Catalan and Occitan.
I have taken pains to be as neutral as possible. The gory political details of the affair don't really concern an article on the Portuguese language (or the Portuguese version of the language); they are best left for Galician language itself, or perhaps for a specific article. Any objections?... FilipeS 21:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The standard orthography takes advantage of the divergent features of the phonology of Galician to emphasize its differences from Portuguese, insisting on strictly phonetic spelling, and rejecting Portuguese graphic conventions such as circumflex and grave accents, tildes on vowels, or graphemes like nh, lh, j, in favour of ñ, ll, x, etc., with the argument that the latter spellings are the oldest. 
I had forgotten that this makes no sense, since the spelling x for j/g is not the oldest. I'm reverting this part to the earlier version. FilipeS 12:32, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Galician II: the sequel

message: I've been leaning towards the opinions expressed above, here and here, by Guifa, Matthew Stuckwisch, and Pedro: this section is currently too long. Too much of the article is spent talking about languages other than Portuguese. At the same time, I wouldn't like to see the material in it be lost.
I propose following Matthew's suggestion: starting a new article for a comparison of Spanish with Portuguese, and linking to it in the article. As for most of the other languages (Ladino, Mirandese, etc.), the paragraphs should be replaced with links to their pages. FilipeS 12:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Trimming down Classification and Related Languages

message: The more colloquial examples were "corrected" three times, now. It's likely to happen again. Perhaps it would be better to move the table to Brazilian Portuguese. Any objections or other ideas...? FilipeS 17:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Table Comparing European Portuguese with Brazilian Portuguese